Boomers are MIA

• Millennials say their boomer parents have abandoned them.
• A hidden expense is sucking $74 billion out of the economy.
• OpenAI CEO Sam Altman went on an $85 million real-estate shopping spree.
• A sales practice at American Express is under scrutiny.

Enter the spousal lifetime-access trust, an increasingly popular tactic with the wealthy that offers the best of both worlds.

The trust, known as a SLAT, allows married taxpayers to put some of their money in trusts that then pay out to their spouses, with the trust passing to new beneficiaries, typically the kids, only after the spouse dies. It’s a way to maintain some control over one’s wealth, book a tax benefit, and pass on one’s wealth to the offspring in the future.

Under the law, rich parents can put almost $13 million into a SLAT without incurring the federal estate tax. That number will drop to $5 million, adjusted for inflation from 2018, when the Trump-era tax cuts expire.

The SLAT tactic is one of the many ways rich people are saving big on taxes, from putting mansions in trusts to guaranteeing inheritance for future generations.

Meanwhile, many of their millennial children feel left behind. Some who have gone on to have their own children feel their parents have become “too busy” to help raise their growing families.

More on the new generational dynamic.

Also read:

• Millennial and Gen Z parents are struggling

• Why millennials say they need more than double the salary of other generations to be happy

Insuring your property is often mandatory, making the payments feel more like a force of nature than an active spending decision. But with the rising cost of repairs and frequency of damaging weather events, insurance companies are jacking up premiums on people from coast-to-coast.

As a result, Americans are projected to spend $74 billion more on insurance next year. Budgets will crack — and the US economy will pay the price.

We break it down here.

These purchases included multimillion-dollar properties in Hawaii, San Francisco, and Napa, California — and they were all managed by his discreet family office.

How Altman spent his money.

Also read:

• We now have more details on what the heck happened at OpenAI