On Wall Street: New York Life's Insurance Sales Soar 24% in 1Q

Pretty amazing ...

On Wall Street: New York Life's Insurance Sales Soar 24% in 1Q: "New York Life's Insurance Sales Soar 24% in 1Q
By Larry Barrett
New York Life Insurance Company said its individual life insurance sales rose 24% in the first quarter, helping the firm garner 12.1% of the overall market share among life insurance providers."

The value of your business based on the two rules of overriding American business values

This short, well written piece explains what a buyer is willing to pay and how much a buyer is willing to put down to purchase business.

First, is a general desire to see an investment repay itself within five years. Second is a desire to have a fall back position in the way of liquidation should an acquisition not work out as planned. These can be represented by two rules.

Read the entire piece at the website of The Podolny Group, Inc.

GOP softening its position on estate tax - NYPOST.com

While it's still early, leaders in both parties appear comfortable with the $5 million exemption, the source said.

The chief difference is that the Democrats would like the rate on the taxable portion of the estate to return to 2009's 45 percent level, while Republicans want to keep it at 35 percent, the source said.

Read more: http://www.nypost.com/p/news/business/senate_eyes_compromise_on_estate_B55ToJLp1amtEFceexHyfO#ixzz1Ohvh1Omp

Another Good-Facts Case Helps Deliver a Taxpayer Victory

The recent Tax Court case of Estate of Shurtz v. Commissioner provides an example of a good facts case that resulted in a taxpayer victory

When Mrs. Shurtz died in 2002, her 87.6% limited partnerships interest was valued at just over $6.1 million and her general partnership interest at $73,500. Because her estate plan disbursed nearly its total value – over $8.7 million – to qualified marital and other trusts, her estate claimed that no estate taxes were due.

 ...  the court found that the FLP “was carried out in the way that ordinary parties to a business transaction would do business with each other.”...  with no additional estate taxes due.

From an article on the website of Kotzin Valuation Partners, LLC.

Is there a good web-based Life Insurance Calculator?

I have three web-based calculators to suggest as a starting point. One of them is carrier-neutral in that it is hosted by the Life Insurance Foundation for Education non-profit website. (Then again, the L.I.F.E. organization is funded primarily by life insurance carriers.) The Prudential tool is particularly interesting in that includes a tab labeled “The Value of All You Do” which is intended to help quantify the economic value of a spouse who may work as many hours as her high-income husband but without whom the family would be lost.

Life Insurance Needs Calculator - L.I.F.E. 
Life Insurance Needs Estimator – Prudential

Life Insurance Needs Calculator - MetLife

The following two calculators are hosted on an ugly, ad-supported website. They may be of interest, however, because of their quite different approaches. The first attempts to be very comprehensive by accounting for a wide variety of a family’s economic circumstances and expectations. The second goes in quite the opposite direction by eliminating all the distractions and approaching the problem as one of quantifying the present value of the income earner’s future stream of income. (Personally, I tend to favor this approach in circumstances where the clients are sufficiently affluent that speaking of the survivors’ “needs” makes little sense. In such cases, the idea is to replace the contribution to the family’s expected wealth accumulation which is lost due to the premature death of a high-income earner.

Comprehensive Life Insurance Analysis - Dinkytown.net
Human Life Value - Dinkytown.net