There are a lot of headlines out there questioning the safety and liquidity of our banking system after the recent failures of Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank.

Executive compensation is the combination of salary, benefits and bonuses offered to executives and other top management in exchange for their efforts on behalf of an employer.

In 2022, there were nearly 7.8 million reports of suspicious activities related to taxpayer returns according to the Identity Theft Tax Refund Fraud Information Sharing Mission & Analysis Center, a partnership between the IRS, companies and states. Most of these suspicious activities related to online tax fraud.

Is “rothification” even a word? Probably not, but to me it seems a fitting term to describe several of the changes in store for retirement plans as a result of new legislation signed by Congress at the end of 2022.

Retirement is an ongoing process of emotional adjustments.

With the capital markets closed in observance of Presidents’ Day, we created a day for our teammates to give back to the communities in which we live, work, and play. We call this day our Day of Caring.

Our national debt has garnered a lot of attention this year, both for its absolute size and for the possibility that our elected friends in Washington might fail to raise its ceiling.

Most estate plans skip the idea of using incentive distribution provisions to induce behavioral changes in the estate beneficiaries. A common estate distribution regime uses milestone ages, e.g., 25% at age 25, 50% at age 30, and the balance to be distributed at age 35.

Behavioral biases are beliefs or behaviors that can unconsciously influence our financial decision-making. One example is loss aversion, where the pain of losing (money) is more powerful than the pleasure of gaining.

On December 29, 2022, President Biden signed the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2023. The legislation contains significant retirement provisions in what is called the SECURE 2.0 Act of 2022 (“the Act”).

Cross-testing is a calculation method used for allocating employer discretionary profit-sharing contributions. This is often used alongside 401(k) and safe harbor contributions to maximize annual contribution limits (usually targeted to owners or highly compensated employees) at the lowest overall cost to the company.

Please join me in welcoming our newest teammate back home to Birmingham, Michigan. Bill Feldmaier has recently joined Greenleaf Trust as our new Managing Director of our southeast Michigan market and will be located in our Birmingham office.

We’re off to a good start in 2023. If you believe the notion that ‘as goes January, so goes the year,’ the so-called January Barometer suggests we may be in for a positive year in the stock market.

US equities have historically generated outstanding returns for long-term investors. Notwithstanding numerous recessions, market panics, wars, and a global pandemic, the S&P 500 has increased in value from 17 in 1927 to nearly 4,000 in 2022, equating to an annualized total return of nearly 10%.

The term hedonic treadmill, also known as hedonic adaptation, was created in the early 1970’s when behavioral economics came onto the scene combining psychology and economic behavior.

Individual retirement accounts (IRAs) comprised over an estimated $13.9 trillion of assets as of 2021 per the Investment Company Institute. IRA balances have risen significantly over time as companies moved away from pension plans and baby boomers gathered assets for retirement.

The year end has passed and business leaders and office personnel have been working diligently on closing the books for the year end 2022. This process can be time consuming and stressful.