Thinking About Donating Your Stock to Charity?: Doing so is a powerful tax strategy to optimize your charitable giving

For investors seeking to support charitable causes while maximizing their tax benefits, donating stock instead of cash can provide significant advantages. By contributing appreciated securities to a qualified charity, investors can potentially deduct the full fair market value of the donated stock on their federal income tax return. Here are a few reasons why donating…

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Estate planning for your digital assets

What will happen to your Facebook account when you die? What about all your photos shared on social media, your texts with loved ones, or documents on cloud-storage systems? In just the two-year period from 2012 to 2014, humans produced more data than in all of human civilization before that – and the pace is…

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Dividing Your Estate: A Practical Approach

When planning the division of your assets, you may believe in a policy of “share and share alike.” This is perhaps the easiest method to avoid conflicts or complaints of favoritism. But does equality necessarily equate with fairness? Especially when you consider such factors as age, talents, skills, interests, needs, and degrees of material success.…

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The Most Common Estate Planning Mistakes and How To Avoid Them

In the realm of estate planning, the ripple effects of our oversights often linger long after we’re gone, impacting the lives of those we leave behind. It’s the uniqueness of this area of planning that makes it paramount to get things right. Yet, many often trip up. Here’s a closer look at the six most…

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Estate Planning & Business Transition Checklist: Ensure your personal and business affairs align with your long-term goals

The end of the year serves as a natural checkpoint for many financial and personal processes, and with the arrival of the final months of 2023, proactive preparation becomes essential. Whether you are an individual looking to optimize your estate planning or a business owner contemplating a seamless transition, the steps you take now can…

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Cybersecurity and AI: The Bad

Artificial intelligence is being pushed to new limits with the release of programs like Chat GPT. AI and cybersecurity have intersected for years. Last month, we talked about how cybersecurity professionals can use these programs to help protect against scams. This month, however, we will focus on the dark side of AI and cybersecurity. Scam…

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Cybersecurity and AI: The Good

The power of AI has been in the news with the release of Chat GPT and similar AI programs. Security researchers tested Chat GPT to see if the program could write malicious code—and it came very close. With every technological advance, there are always added risks. But there can be benefits as well. AI can…

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