During an appearance before a House subcommittee, Securities and Exchange Commission Enforcement Director Gurbir Grewal indicated that more enforcement actions related to Regulation Best Interest cases could be coming. Grewal also expressed concern about certain digital engagement practices, such as gamification, used by firms in the investment industry.

Recent legislative and rule changes related to IRAs may have upended estate plans clients had in place, writes tax expert Ed Slott. He offers a three-step plan for financial advisors that involves identifying those most affected by the rule changes, explaining what the rule changes mean for them and offering planning alternatives.

Knowing your business valuation is key for a number of reasons, writes Cheryl Winokur Munk, such as estate and tax planning and issuing stock options. "If you go through the valuation process and the value isn't quite where you want it to be, you can improve the valuation based on the areas identified," said CBIZ Valuation Group director Tami Bolder.

A downturn might present an appealing opportunity to transfer business interests to children or other heirs, given the potential drop in value, writes Matthew Helfrich of Waldron Private Wealth. "If you make the transfer while the business is worth less, you'll be using less of the estate tax exemption, proportionally," Helfrich writes.

Retirees worried that required minimum distributions will drain their retirement accounts can reinvest the money, says Christine Benz, Morningstar's director of personal finance and retirement planning. Benz suggests several options including reinvesting in a Roth IRA, a taxable brokerage account or municipal bonds.

It's important for advisors to think about succession planning even if they are years away from selling their firm, writes advisor Ty Young, who poses six questions firm owners should ask themselves. They include what the business is worth and what makes it attractive to a potential buyer.

The House has approved a six-bill "minibus" package that includes $2.1 billion in fiscal 2023 funding for the Securities and Exchange Commission, which will now go to the Senate. In a comment on the House's funding recommendation, the House Appropriations Committee again asked for the SEC to create a filing form specifically for registered index-linked annuities.

The National Association of Insurance Commissioners' Indexed Universal Life Illustration Subgroup met for the first time in five months to consider options for revising Actuarial Guideline 49A to attempt to further crack down on indexed universal life insurance illustrations. Fred Anderson, chairman of the subgroup, presented four options that ranged from no changes to applying a hard cap to some illustration metrics.

Clients who have children with special needs can start a financial plan by ensuring they have an updated will that names a primary guardian as well as successor guardians, writes financial planner Josh Monroe. A special needs trust, funded with the help of life insurance, is another critical tool for protecting clients' children.

Investors younger than 55 have more interest in annuities as a retirement income option than baby boomers, a survey by the Alliance for Lifetime Income and Cannex found. Among respondents age 45 to 54, 58% have given some thought to annuities.