With more than 500 different profession-specific software products to choose from in at least 30 different categories, building your tech stack is more complicated than ever. Join a panel of tech experts and business consultants as they survey the landscape and provide guidance on your selection process and what to look for in the CPA planner’s tech future.

Life insurance enjoys similar income tax characteristics as Roth IRAs. Premiums are paid into the policy after tax, earnings in the cash value, and withdrawals therefrom or loans thereagainst, are not includible in the policy owner’s gross income (if the policy is designed and managed properly), and death benefit proceeds are generally not includible the beneficiary’s gross income. For many high-income-earner taxpayers cannot qualify for Roth IRAs, or may be limited with how much can be contributed to a Roth 401(k), cash value life insurance can be a powerful Roth-alternative wealth accumulation strategy. For those with large traditional IRAs not needed for retirement income, cash value life insurance can also be a powerful wealth transfer strategy when distributions from the IRA are used to fund premiums. This session will examine how cash value life insurance can act as an “unlimited Roth IRA” for high earners to grow wealth, including a detailed analysis of the effect of policy charges on cash value accumulation compared to investing in a portfolio of traditional taxable investments, as well as an effective wealth transfer strategy to help control the damage caused by the SECURE Act on traditional IRAs.

Inclusion is often described as a Human Resources initiative along with Diversity and Culture. However, it is also a strategic business imperative that can lead to firm growth, increased clients, higher team retention and innovative offerings.

With the current, high estate tax exemption, many practitioners believe “generation skipping” tax planning (keeping inherited assets out of the taxable estates of children) is no longer needed for most clients, just for very large estates. However, the estate tax exemption could be frozen or even reduced after the 2020 election. Even if this doesn’t happen, many married couples will likely underutilize the “generation skipping tax” (“GST”) exemption because it isn’t subject to portability. And keep in mind that inherited estates may grow during a child’s lifetime because, even in moderate-sized parental estates, trusts are often being set up for children, e.g., asset protection, divorce, blood-line distribution control or income tax reasons.

The reality is, because of changes in the tax code, GST planning is appropriate in lots of estates when it wouldn’t have been not too long ago. But, this raises an important question: are you up to speed on the complicated GST rules and can you properly apply them?

Join Bob Keebler to learn how to utilize the GST rules to maximum advantage for your clients. Here are just a few of the topics Bob will cover in this content-packed session:

· Who are “skip persons” versus “non-skip persons”
· What are “direct skips” versus “indirect skips”
· The difference between the annual GST exclusion and life GST exemption amounts?
· The automatic allocation rules?
· When do you allocate the lifetime GST exemption amount to “indirect skips”?
· How does late allocation of the lifetime GST exemption amount work?
· How do you calculate the “inclusion ratio”?
· How to split trusts into GST and non-GST shares via “qualified severance”?

This session will cover cross-border estate, gift and trust issues and the reporting requirements associated with those issues. 

The beginning of 2021 ushered in a new U.S President and a change of control in the U.S Senate. In this session, we will explore what President Joe Biden has detailed as his proposed tax plan, the focus primarily on individual income tax, estate tax and investment taxation. This program will take a holistic look at the proposed platform, and attendees will learn about the major changes outlined by President Biden, exploring both the new challenges, and planning opportunities, it creates.

Behavioral Finance Advice with Magic bridges the gap in traditional finance that assumes people are rational. Because most people are irrational, it combines traditional finance with the science behind how our brains work and the psychology of why we make the decisions we do.

After this session, you will be able to help your clients:

This session will address the challenges of estate planning in 2021. Have new laws been proposed or passed? How should practitioners respond? What techniques should be recommended now? Which techniques are best to use in a low interest rate environment? Are different techniques best recommended for clients at different levels of wealth? These and related issues will be discussed.

The reality of the of long term care planning for today’s mass affluent client has changed for the positive. Longevity, lifestyle and legacy are why the subject must be considered.

The financial and non-financial consequences that providing care brings will result in difficult decisions and compromise family dynamics. This is especially true for the sandwich generation, blended families, divorce, and growing solo aging population.

The desire for control about how, where and who provides care is front and center in a Covid world.

An increase in chronic conditions for aging such as Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, and Covid long-haulers demands proactive LTC planning. Reduced government programs and increased costs for retirement lifestyle make LTC planning valuable, if not critical.

We will compare the new planning solutions in the marketplace. Hybrid polices, Joint and Second to Die LTC solutions and Life and Annuities with Riders. A discussion of the differences in LTC riders, and a focus on the sweet spots for planning given health and family history will highlight opportunistic planning windows.

An analysis of “self- insuring “will solve for the true cost of self-funding for the mass affluent and HNW clients. Financing, gifting options, ILITs, tax incentives and 1035 exchanges in LTC planning are unique and opportunistic planning tools that will be addressed.

Lastly, why the broker you ultimately work with matters - for successful client outcomes and at policy execution.

Today, cloud accounting has taken over as the preferred method for accountants and auditors to do their jobs easier, faster, and smarter than ever before and application programming interfaces (APIs) are proving to be a key piece in the future of the profession. In this session we will review how APIs within GoSystem Tax, GoFileRoom and FirmFlow can automate the tax workflow process.

Join Thomson Reuters expert, Calvin Leong, and explore:

• What APIs are (terminology and use cases)

• Benefits and advantages of using APIs in your firm

• Review of GoSystem APIs

• Review of GoFileRoom APIs

• Review of FirmFlow APIs

• Implementation and getting started.