Trusted Legal Resources

Helping Clients Protect Themselves and Their Loved Ones This National Safety Month

Posted by Robert L. Arone For over a quarter of a century, the National Safety Council has recognized June as National Safety Month. An objective of National Safety Month is to raise public awareness of the top safety and health risks in the United States. One of the lesser-known but considerable risks Americans and their loved ones face are the financial and emotional repercussions that can accompany incapacity or death. A revocable living trust is a legal tool that can keep clients and their loved ones safe from the costs, uncertainty, and confusion that may result upon a client’s incapacity or death. A Revocable Living Trust Protects the ClientLike every person, a client is at constant risk of suffering a disastrous accident or illness that may render them incapable of caring for themselves or their loved ones. Their incapacity could be temporary, or it could last until their eventual death. The

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Three Things You Can Do to Help Clients with National Moving Month

Posted by Robert L. Arone The month of May means not only the end of the school year and the beginning of summer but also the beginning of the busiest moving season of the year. That’s why May is National Moving Month. Your clients have a lot to think about when moving: along with organizing and packing up all of their belongings, there is also starting and stopping utilities, mail forwarding, updating voter registration, and so on. While the ever-growing number of items on their moving to-do list may be overwhelming, there are three important things you can do to help any client in the process of moving: (1) make sure they know where their important documents are, (2) help them set a moving budget, and (3) continue as their advisor, or connect them to a new advisor. Make Sure They Know Where Their Important Documents Are In all of the chaos

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Help Clients Celebrate Earth Day with These Environmentally Friendly Burial Options

Posted by Robert L. Arone When it comes to death and what to do with a deceased’s remains, most people think of only two options: burial or cremation. However, these options are not particularly environmentally friendly. Burial, which is arguably the worst option from an environmental standpoint, uses an estimated 100,000 tons of steel, 1.5 million tons of concrete, 77,000 trees and 4.3 million gallons of embalming fluid every year.[1] Some of that 4.3 million gallons of carcinogenic embalming fluid likely leaks into the earth, polluting our water and soil. Cremation, often considered the greener option, is not much better. Some estimate that one cremation uses about as much gas and electricity as a 500-mile road trip and gives off around 250 pounds of carbon dioxide.[2] For those clients that are more environmentally minded, here are some nontraditional, eco-friendly burial ideas. An added benefit is that many of these environmentally friendly ideas

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What Will Happen If Your Clients’ Loved Ones Become Disabled?

Posted by Robert L. Arone We all plan for “just-in-case” scenarios. When packing for our week-long vacation, we throw in a rain jacket even though the weather forecast is sunny—just in case. When helping clients plan for the future, it is also important to consider what will happen just in case one of our clients’ loved ones becomes disabled. We tend to think that disability is something that affects other people. But approximately 61 million adults in the United States live with a disability—that is one in four adults.[1] And more than one in four twenty-year-olds will become disabled before reaching retirement age.[2] Disability is unpredictable, and accidents or serious physical or mental conditions, such as cancer or mental illness, can happen to anyone at any age. As helpful as it would be when advising our clients, no one has a crystal ball to see into the future. We do not know when a

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Entity Options for Your Massachusetts Small Business

Posted by Robert L. Arone You know your business better than anyone else: whether that be a professional, trade, occupation, dog-walking, catering, or custom-made crocheted goods. But when it comes to giving your business the best legal and tax footing, you may feel a little lost in what choices there are and the benefits and costs of each choice. In this article, I will give a simplified overview of a few business structures available to Massachusetts entrepreneurs and small business owners. Each has its own benefits and drawbacks regarding registration procedure, tax structure, and personal liability. Some choices are better for taxation and some for liabilities and some structures cost more to maintain. Sole Proprietorship A sole proprietorship is, in many ways, the default legal structure for a Massachusetts business. A sole proprietorship has, as the name would suggest, a single (“sole”) owner (“proprietor”). The procedure for setting up a

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