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Society Of Trust And Estate Practitioners
STEP (the Society of Trust and Estate Practitioners) was founded by George Tasker in 1991 and is the international professional body for advisers who specialise in inheritance and succession planning. Its members are mainly solicitors, barristers, attorneys, accountants, tax advisers, trust officers and trust administrators as well as banking and insurance professionals in the trust field. Objectives The main focus of the organisation is to promote high professional standards within the profession, to provide educational and networking opportunities for its members and to contribute to debate and public policy in its specialist field. Membership STEP has more than 100 branches and chapters in 56 countries with a current membership in excess of 20,000. It runs a number of educational programmes, from entry-level certificates to a full diploma. Accumulated credits from these qualifications and prior experience determine the level of membership. Only full STEP members can use th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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A society is a group of individuals involved in persistent social interaction, or a large social group sharing the same spatial or social territory, typically subject to the same political authority and dominant cultural expectations. Societies are characterized by patterns of relationships (social relations) between individuals who share a distinctive culture and institutions; a given society may be described as the sum total of such relationships among its constituent of members. In the social sciences, a larger society often exhibits stratification or dominance patterns in subgroups. Societies construct patterns of behavior by deeming certain actions or concepts as acceptable or unacceptable. These patterns of behavior within a given society are known as societal norms. Societies, and their norms, undergo gradual and perpetual changes. Insofar as it is collaborative, a society can enable its members to benefit in ways that would otherwise be difficult on an individual bas ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Succession Planning
Succession planning is a process and strategy for replacement planning or passing on leadership roles. It is used to identify and develop new, potential leaders who can move into leadership roles when they become vacant. Succession planning in dictatorships, monarchies, politics, and international relations is used to ensure continuity and prevention of power struggle. Within monarchies succession is settled by the order of succession. In business, succession planning entails developing internal people with managing or leadership potential to fill key hierarchical positions in the company. It is a process of identifying critical roles in a company and the core skills associated with those roles, and then identifying possible internal candidates to assume those roles when they become vacant. Succession planning also applies to small and family businesses (including farms and agriculture) where it is the process used to transition the ownership and management of a business to the ne ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Solicitor
A solicitor is a legal practitioner who traditionally deals with most of the legal matters in some jurisdictions. A person must have legally-defined qualifications, which vary from one jurisdiction to another, to be described as a solicitor and enabled to practise there as such. For example, in England and Wales a solicitor is admitted to practise under the provisions of the Solicitors Act 1974. With some exceptions, practising solicitors must possess a practising certificate. There are many more solicitors than barristers in England; they undertake the general aspects of giving legal advice and conducting legal proceedings. In the jurisdictions of England and Wales and in Northern Ireland, in the Australian states of New South Wales, Victoria, and Queensland, Hong Kong, South Africa (where they are called '' attorneys'') and the Republic of Ireland, the legal profession is split between solicitors and barristers (called ''advocates'' in some countries, for example Scotland), ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Barrister
A barrister is a type of lawyer in common law jurisdictions. Barristers mostly specialise in courtroom advocacy and litigation. Their tasks include taking cases in superior courts and tribunals, drafting legal pleadings, researching law and giving expert legal opinions. Barristers are distinguished from both solicitors and chartered legal executives, who have more direct access to clients, and may do transactional legal work. It is mainly barristers who are appointed as judges, and they are rarely hired by clients directly. In some legal systems, including those of Scotland, South Africa, Scandinavia, Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, and the British Crown dependencies of Jersey, Guernsey and the Isle of Man, the word ''barrister'' is also regarded as an honorific title. In a few jurisdictions, barristers are usually forbidden from "conducting" litigation, and can only act on the instructions of a solicitor, and increasingly - chartered legal executives, who perform tasks such ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lawyer
A lawyer is a person who practices law. The role of a lawyer varies greatly across different legal jurisdictions. A lawyer can be classified as an advocate, attorney, barrister, canon lawyer, civil law notary, counsel, counselor, solicitor, legal executive, or public servant — with each role having different functions and privileges. Working as a lawyer generally involves the practical application of abstract legal theories and knowledge to solve specific problems. Some lawyers also work primarily in advancing the interests of the law and legal profession. Terminology Different legal jurisdictions have different requirements in the determination of who is recognized as being a lawyer. As a result, the meaning of the term "lawyer" may vary from place to place. Some jurisdictions have two types of lawyers, barrister and solicitors, while others fuse the two. A barrister (also known as an advocate or counselor in some jurisdictions) is a lawyer who typically specia ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Accountant
An accountant is a practitioner of accounting or accountancy. Accountants who have demonstrated competency through their professional associations' certification exams are certified to use titles such as Chartered Accountant, Chartered Certified Accountant or Certified Public Accountant, or Registered Public Accountant. Such professionals are granted certain responsibilities by statute, such as the ability to certify an organization's financial statements, and may be held liable for professional misconduct. Non-qualified accountants may be employed by a qualified accountant, or may work independently without statutory privileges and obligations. Cahan & Sun (2015) used archival study to find out that accountants’ personal characteristics may exert a very significant impact during the audit process and further influence audit fees and audit quality. Practitioners have been portrayed in popular culture by the stereotype of the humorless, introspective bean-counter. It has been ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tax Advisor
A tax advisor or tax consultant is a person with advanced training and knowledge of tax law. The services of a tax advisor are usually retained in order to minimize taxation while remaining compliant with the law in complicated financial situations. Tax Advisors are also retained to represent clients before tax authorities and tax courts to resolve tax issues. Money Austria In Austria, Steuerberater is the professional license for tax advisors. Germany In Germany, Steuerberater is the professional license for tax advisors. Italy In Italy, tax advisors are called ''commercialisti'', and provide assistance on business management, business law, economics, finance, tax, accounting, commercial, corporate and administrative matters. ''Dottori commercialisti'', who have a degree in economics, and ''ragionieri commercialisti'', who have a specific high school diploma, were members of two different professional orders, but they were merged in 2008 into the Ordine dei Dottori Commercial ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Banking
A bank is a financial institution that accepts deposits from the public and creates a demand deposit while simultaneously making loans. Lending activities can be directly performed by the bank or indirectly through capital markets. Because banks play an important role in financial stability and the economy of a country, most jurisdictions exercise a high degree of regulation over banks. Most countries have institutionalized a system known as fractional reserve banking, under which banks hold liquid assets equal to only a portion of their current liabilities. In addition to other regulations intended to ensure liquidity, banks are generally subject to minimum capital requirements based on an international set of capital standards, the Basel Accords. Banking in its modern sense evolved in the fourteenth century in the prosperous cities of Renaissance Italy but in many ways functioned as a continuation of ideas and concepts of credit and lending that had their roots in the a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Insurance
Insurance is a means of protection from financial loss in which, in exchange for a fee, a party agrees to compensate another party in the event of a certain loss, damage, or injury. It is a form of risk management, primarily used to hedge against the risk of a contingent or uncertain loss. An entity which provides insurance is known as an insurer, insurance company, insurance carrier, or underwriter. A person or entity who buys insurance is known as a policyholder, while a person or entity covered under the policy is called an insured. The insurance transaction involves the policyholder assuming a guaranteed, known, and relatively small loss in the form of a payment to the insurer (a premium) in exchange for the insurer's promise to compensate the insured in the event of a covered loss. The loss may or may not be financial, but it must be reducible to financial terms. Furthermore, it usually involves something in which the insured has an insurable interest established by ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Trust Law
A trust is a legal relationship in which the holder of a right gives it to another person or entity who must keep and use it solely for another's benefit. In the Anglo-American common law, the party who entrusts the right is known as the "settlor", the party to whom the right is entrusted is known as the "trustee", the party for whose benefit the property is entrusted is known as the " beneficiary", and the entrusted property itself is known as the "corpus" or "trust property". A ''testamentary trust'' is created by a will and arises after the death of the settlor. An ''inter vivos trust'' is created during the settlor's lifetime by a trust instrument. A trust may be revocable or irrevocable; an irrevocable trust can be "broken" (revoked) only by a judicial proceeding. The trustee is the legal owner of the property in trust, as fiduciary for the beneficiary or beneficiaries who is/are the equitable owner(s) of the trust property. Trustees thus have a fiduciary duty to manage th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Administration Of An Estate On Death
In common-law jurisdictions, administration of an estate on death arises if the deceased is legally intestate, meaning they did not leave a will, or some assets are not disposed of by their will. Where a person dies leaving a will appointing an executor, and that executor validly disposes of the property of the deceased within England and Wales, then the estate will go to probate. However, if no will is left, or the will is invalid or incomplete in some way, then administrators must be appointed. They perform a similar role to the executor of a will but, where there are no instructions in a will, the administrators must distribute the estate of the deceased according to the rules laid down by statute and the common trust. Certain property falls outside the estate for administration purposes, the most common example probably being houses jointly owned that pass by survivorship on the first death of a couple into the sole name of the survivor. Other examples include discre ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Geoffrey Shindler
Geoffrey Arnold Shindler (born 21 October 1942) is an English solicitor specialising in the field of wills, trusts and estates law. He is a founding member and president of Society of Trust and Estate Practitioners (STEP). Early life Shindler was born in Manchester, England, to Israel Shindler and Florence Shindller (née Weidberg). Shindler attended and graduated from Bury Grammar School. He graduated with first class honours from Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge as a W. M. Tapp scholar with Master of Arts and Master of Laws degrees. Shindler qualified as a solicitor in 1969. Career Shindler began his career as a clerk from 1966 to 1968 at the law firm, March Pearson & Skelton, working his way up from assistant solicitor from 1968 to 1971, to partner from 1971 to 1986. From 1986 to 2005, Shindler was a partner at the Manchester-based law firm, Halliwell Landau Manchester, where he was Head of Trusts and Estates. From 2005 to 2006, he was a senior member at Halliwells. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
