Wealth and Law

This week on the podcast Brent discusses how volatile markets, combined with low interest rates, can be a terrific time for wealth planning. He explains how asset valuations and interest rates work relative to each other for maximum wealth transfers in GRATs, sales to irrevocable grantor trusts, CLATs, and preferred partnerships.

What’s happening in the markets this year? This week, Brent and Rachel sit down with Doug Nelson on the status of the investment markets over the last quarter and what we may expect in the coming months. Doug gets into rising interest rates, hedging against inflation, and remembering your goals and overall financial plan. Additionally, Doug gives advice for anyone who wants to get into a career of financial planning and how to find your passion in the field. Doug is an advisor and shareholder at TCI Wealth Advisors. Doug has received numerous national recognitions based upon his belief that investment success involves integrating clients’ lifestyle goals with their investment plans. During the last decade, Worth, Barron’s, and Bloomberg Magazine regularly recognized Doug’s work as one of the top independent financial advisors in the nation. You can find Doug at https://tciwealth.com/employee-directory/doug-nelson/, and you can contact him at Doug.Nelson@tciwealth.com, 520-733-1477. If you are enjoying the podcast please SUBSCRIBE and leave a REVIEW, and if you want to learn more about Brent and Rachel go to https://wealthandlaw.com/team/.

A new year calls for tuning up your finances! This week on the Wealth & Law Podcast, Brent and Rachel sit down with Melanie Simons, the CEO of ReFrame Wealth, to discuss her top tips for getting on top of your finances for the new year. We discuss looking at your spending reports, grading your team of advisors, and more. Melanie Simons is a founding member and CEO of ReFrame Wealth. Melanie believes that exceptional service and sound advice should be a standard in all financial planning relationships, and that comfort and confidence are the ultimate measures of financial success. She is grateful that her work allows her daily opportunities to connect with clients, support her team, and build a whole new kind of a financial planning firm — one that puts clients and advisors on the same side of the table and reframes [reimagines] the meaning of wealth. Outside of work, Melanie enjoys spending time with her husband Nick, their daughter Sloane, and a rescued pup of unknown pedigree named Draper. Melanie loves cooking, her favorite books are nonfiction, and nothing can stand between her and her favorite self-care routines. To learn more about Melanie, check out https://www.reframewealth.com/about-us/.

With the hot real estate market, we’re constantly hearing from clients about investing in real estate. So this week on the Wealth & Law Podcast, Brent and Rachel bring in Eric Freeman to discuss how to get into real estate investing. We get into acquiring funding, being tax efficient, and holding your real estate in an LLC. Eric Freeman is a Tax Senior Manager for BeachFleischman PC and has been with the firm since 2012. Eric has a Master of Accounting with a focus in tax. He has spent most of his career focusing on real estate transactions and partnership taxation. Eric has consulted on many complex transactions including multi-asset exchanges, mergers, consolidations, buy-outs, cost segregation studies and transaction formation. He also has a wide variety of experience with international issues as they relate to real estate, including both inbound and outbound transactions. Most recently, Eric has given numerous speeches, written articles and consulted on issues related to Qualified Opportunity Zone Funds. His client base includes real estate developers, property owners and property managers that operate with 2 million to 7 million square feet of real estate, both multifamily and commercial. Eric offers a broadened perspective to his work as a CPA from his own experiences of owning and managing real estate investments with roughly 30,000 square feet currently under management. You can learn more about Eric at https://beachfleischman.com/about/leadership-team/eric-freeman/.

This week Brent, Rachel, and Deborah get together to share a few New Year’s Resolutions that they suggest for anyone wanting to be better organized financially, personally, and as a company. Their suggestions include learning the importance of “expense ratios,” updating your estate plan, starting to plan for the 2026 tax changes, and polishing up your non-profit entity. They also discuss the importance of perspective in setting goals. Ultimately, they want people to be kind to themselves and to just focus on “showing up” as a success.

Over the weekend, the Build Back Better Act was dealt a devastating blow when Senator Manchin announced that he would not vote on the Act before the Christmas deadline. So what’s the fate of the Build Back Better Act and will we still see tax changes in the near future? On this week’s episode of the Wealth & Law Podcast, Brent and Rachel chat with John Strohmeyer to discuss the future of the Build Back Better Act and what clients should be doing while the proposed changes are in limbo. John Strohmeyer is the owner of Strohmeyer Law PLLC, in Houston, Texas. After earning his B.S. in Zoology from the University of Texas at Austin, John spent four years working for the Four Seasons Hotel in Austin, primarily as the Night Manager, before beginning his legal education. He earned my J.D. from the University of Texas School of Law in 2009, then earned a Masters of Law (also known as an “LL.M.”) in Taxation in 2010 from the New York University School of Law. While John’s time at NYU was the end of his formal education (at least for now), he has gone on to become Board Certified by the Texas Board of Legal Specialization in both Tax Law and Estate Planning & Probate Law. John has been recognized by his peers as a Fellow of the American College of Trust and Estate Counsel, named a Texas Super Lawyer by Texas Super Lawyers by Thompson Reuters in 2019, 2020, and 2021, a Rising Star by Texas Super Lawyers by Thompson Reuters in 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, and 2019; “Rookie of the Year” in 2016 and Outstanding Substantive Committee Chair in 2017 by the State Bar of Texas Tax Section; a 2015-2017 Fellow of the Section of Real Property, Trust and Estate Law of the American Bar Association; and a Young Leader of the American College of Trust and Estate Counsel. John can be reached at john@strohmeyerlaw.com, (713) 714-1249. His show is available on You Tube https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCDaKULB-A6Ru4tKfpZl8ozg and on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/strohmeyerlaw.

The Britney Spears conservatorship is finally over…or is it? On this week’s episode of the Wealth & Law Podcast, we’ll catch you up on all that’s happened in the highly publicized conservatorship proceedings and what may still be to come. If you are enjoying the podcast, please SUBSCRIBE and leave a REVIEW, and if you want to learn more about Brent and Rachel go to https://wealthandlaw.com/team/.

There’s just a little more than three weeks left before the the end of the year–can you believe it? We know you’ve got a lot on your plate already with holiday shopping, family gatherings, etc., so on this week’s episode of the Wealth & Law Podcast, we’ve put together a list of five easy things that you can do before the end of the year that will benefit you for years to come. We take a look at making charitable gifts, maxing out 401K plans, taking required minimum distributions from retirement accounts, making annual exclusion gifts, and funding revocable trusts. They are all easy and painless and can done before we ring in the new year. Enjoy! If you are enjoying the podcast, please SUBSCRIBE and leave a REVIEW, and if you want to learn more about Brent and Rachel go to https://wealthandlaw.com/team/.

This week on the podcast we share a few of our favorite highlights from the past 88 episodes. You will hear about vacation homes, trusts under the SECURE Act, planning in Mexico, Colombia, and Canada, forming a successful financial plan, and crypto currencies.

This week, Brent and Rachel are joined again by Darren Case to discuss how they are planning around the proposed federal tax changes. There have been many changes in the last two months so they break it all down and how they see the year ending. Darren is a shareholder in the law firm Tiffany & Bosco, PA, in Phoenix, AZ. He assists families and individuals in the areas of estate planning, probate, and tax, and is the Co-Author (with Brent Nelson and TJ Ryan coincidentally) of the Arizona Estate Planning and Probate Handbook, published by Thomson Reuters – West. Darren is experienced in a broad range of planning techniques, including traditional wills and revocable trusts, along with more sophisticated planning strategies such as insurance trusts, residence trusts, “defective” grantor trusts, generation-skipping or dynasty trusts, charitable trusts, split-interest trusts, family limited partnerships and intra-family sales and loans, etc. He assists clients by providing tax and estate planning services specifically tailored to each individual client, whether it is a client who has amassed substantial wealth or those who are in the process of accumulating such wealth.  Darren is also experienced in the area of probate and trust administration and litigation, having worked on simple to complex trust and estate matters, and everything in between. Darren attended Arizona State University for his undergraduate studies, where he received his Bachelors of Interdisciplinary Studies in business and communication. He received his law degree from Chapman University, graduating with an emphasis in taxation, and was the Tax Law Emphasis Honors Graduate of his class. In addition to his law degree, Darren received his Master of Laws in Taxation, with a Certificate in Estate Planning, from Georgetown University. Darren’s firm bio and contact information are available at https://www.tblaw.com/attorneys/darren-t-case/. If you are enjoying the podcast please SUBSCRIBE and leave a REVIEW, and if you want to learn more about Brent and Rachel go to https://wealthandlaw.com/team/.