This post will summarize why I almost never form statutory corporations and why every small business corporation in North Carolina should consider converting to an LLC. How a business is taxed and how it is organized under state law are different issues. There is no such thing as an S-corporation or a C-corporation under the…

If you have read anything that I have written, you know that I am a fan of Trusts. They can be drafted to do all kinds of magical things to protect both grantors and beneficiaries. Many of our clients with significant assets wish to leave their assets to beneficiaries in a Trust that the beneficiary…

Congress passed the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, commonly known as HIPAA, in 1996. The HIPAA Privacy Rule is a set of standards created by the United States Department of Health and Human Services to implement the requirements of HIPAA. The Privacy Rule permits you to control the use and disclosure of your Protected…

I have clients who are 100 years old, who just turned 18, who are wealthy, who are poor, who just got married, who just got divorced, who just started a business, and who just filed bankruptcy. You pick a category, and I have represented them. I can put them all in two groups. The first…

Maybe not. Maybe you think that estate planning for the middle class means avoiding probate when you can. Maybe you think it is your beneficiaries’ job to best use what they inherit. If that is your position, then you are not alone. Most lawyers, bankers, and financial advisors agree with you. But that thinking is…

I get to learn all about new people several times per week. We talk about things like their dreams for the future, how to save taxes and who will handle their affairs when they can’t do it any longer. No one has ever told me that they want a court to appoint someone they don’t…

You may be thinking that Wills and Trusts don’t seem to have a lot to do with surfboards. But for me, they have a lot in common. I have spent years studying all three. I appreciate their intricacies. They all take up a lot of my time. And they affect my finances. Wills and Trusts…

When I was about to turn 16, I had saved around $1,500. Most of it came from working in tobacco the three prior summers. I spent it all on a 1974 Volkswagen. About 9 years later, my wife and I used all of our savings for a down payment on our first house. We didn’t…

I occasionally re-read one of my favorite books, Robert Ruark’s The Old Man’s Boy Grows Older. In this classic sequel to The Old Man and the Boy, Ruark reminisces about hunting and fishing with his grandfather in Brunswick County, North Carolina in the early 1900s. He shares with his readers many of the lessons he learned from…