Mark Wahlstrom mentioned in Wall Street Journal story on Structured Sales.

Every now and then a business publication really sets out to do a real job of reporting on a topic or concept.

Todays Wall Street Journal article written by reported Rachel Emma Silverman on Structured Sales is really one of the better written and researched pieces of journalism on the structured settlement process, and in particular the structured sale.

You can link to the article by clicking here although you need to subscribe to the WSJ online to read the entire piece.

Failing that get a copy of the March 21, 2007 copy of the WSJ and go to section D1. I'll eventually get a pdf and put it here in the resource section.

Her summary was essentially as follows:

1.  The strategy can be useful for older people wanting a guaranteed income stream.

2. The IRS hasn't opined on the approach, so there's a risk it could be disallowed at a future time.

3. Low capital gains rates might make it better to pay the tax upfront.

I agree with each of these conclusions, and it should be a real spur to Allstate, Prudential and others to GET A PRIVATE LETTER RULING AND GET OF YOUR REAR ENDS AND GET IT SOON!

Everyone out here selling and marketing these knows that a PLR would dramatically accelerate the sale of this product, but it should not be incumbent on my firm or my clients to go get it. The stakeholders with the most to gain are Allstate and Prudential and they need to get on the ball and get this done. 

All in all a very good article.  

Mark Wahlstrom featured in Forbes article on structured sales

While i'm not thrilled with the article, as it generally lumped structured sales in with an article ripping up private annuties, 1031 exchanges and other questionable real estate gain schemes, they at least spelled my name properly and got me located in Scottsdale, AZ.

You can read the full article here, although you will have to register with Forbes, which is free to do.  

As you'll read in the article, which is generally hostile to the concept of tax deferral of real estate property gain, they tend to take the approach that all products designed to defer gains are some how anti-consumer and not worth the effort. While I would agree that private annuities were totally abused by the planning community, and that 1031 exchanges are probably the next big area of IRS scrutiny, they gloss over the strong tax status and history of installment sales. Just because it has a fixed annuity and assignment attached to it doesn't make it suspect, as they would imply, it actually makes it stronger as you end up with Prudential or Allstate as the payor of the installments and guarantor of payments.

Hopefully the article stimulates more discussion of the concept and more in depth analysis of it's benefits and drawbacks, but again, they got the name right and I still encourage you to read it and see what you think.  

Mark Wahlstrom featured in Robb Report Vacation Homes edition.

In the current edition of Robb Report Vacation homes, December 2006/ January 2007 Mark Wahlstrom was featured in an article entitled "The annuity Way" discussing the use of structured sale annuities to fund installment real estate sales.

The article was written by John Morell and reviews the recent increased awareness of the product, how it is applied in real estate sales and it's application in the vacation and second home markets.

In a frustrating note, they don't have an online link to the story available on the Robb Report web site, but I'm working on getting a clean pdf file copy to post here on the site. In the mean time, go pick up a copy at the news stand or contact my office and i'll fax you a copy of it for you to read and review.

The general awareness of the financial and real estate community about the relatively new use of this product is starting to increase, and there are more and more real estate professionals looking to offer this to their clients. If you are a financial, tax or real estate professional who is looking to learn more about how you can offer structured sales to your clients, contact my office and lets talk about working together on this. Lets use your local knowledge and contacts, and my expertise in structured sales to assist your clients with their tax and cash flow planning.