Episode 64: Gifting at 88, Deferred Comp Defaults, and 100-Year Families

July 6th, 2026  |  40 mins 31 secs

100-year family enterprises, deferred comp elections, deferred compensation, estate planning, executive compensation, family business, financial literacy, gifting strategies, inheritance planning, lifetime gifting to grandchildren, retirement planning, step-up in basis, tax planning, three-generation myth

An 88-year-old mother with $6 million in a brokerage account of embedded gains wants to gift to her grandchildren now, and Stephan works through the tradeoff between lifetime gifting and the step-up at death, the tools that solve the problem without sacrificing basis, and why the honest answer at 88 is rarely more complicated than annual exclusions and direct payments. Then a 51-year-old executive defaulting to lump-sum-at-separation on his deferred comp elections gets a full walkthrough of what's actually at stake — Section 409A irrevocability, credit risk, the tax cliff at separation, and how installment options and in-service distributions coordinate with the years ahead. In From the Field, organizational psychologist Dennis Jaffe joins the show to share what he learned from interviewing 100 families across 22 countries that have thrived past their third generation, why the "three-generation curse" is largely a myth, and how successful families evolve from a single entrepreneur into a cooperative community across generations.