Latest news with #Rizzuto
Yahoo
30-07-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
How to avoid capital gains taxes with highly appreciated stocks
For families locked into highly appreciated stock that could bring a big tax hit from the capital gains on any sale of the holdings, a so-called upstream gift could offer a solution. But the potential door to a step-up in basis that avoids capital gains taxes is only open if the person receiving the stock keeps it until death, updates estate-planning documents for a new beneficiary to receive the holdings and lives at least one year from the date they received the equity, said Ben Rizzuto, a director and wealth strategist with Janus Henderson Investors' Specialist Consulting Group. In a blog post last month, the company used the example of a father who saved $1.5 million in possible taxes on the Apple stock he had held for more than 40 years by gifting it to his father, rather than his son. "The idea of upstream gifting has been around since the tax code was written. The thing that I have found is that people don't think about it from that direction," Rizzuto said in an interview. "At any point in time, someone can have or hold an asset that has a low cost basis and a big unrealized gain, and we need to think about, are there ways that we can help them not incur that tax liability?" While taxes on a gift of more than $19,000 in a single year would not apply to the strategy, the transfer does affect the two estates' values, Rizzuto noted. But the exemptions from estate taxes are high enough (and staying that way, thanks to the One Big Beautiful Bill Act) that the appreciated stock wouldn't pose an impact on most households' plans. READ MORE: Advisors clamor for estate planning tools as attorneys wave red flags Besides the tax implications, large longtime holdings of the same stock sometimes come with emotional baggage tied to keeping them in the family. The upstream gifting of assets adds to other available strategies for highly concentrated or appreciated holdings, such as charitable giving, Section 351 conversions or variable prepaid forwards. Financial advisors and their clients cannot use the upstream gifting strategy for inherited individual retirement accounts, but it could prove beneficial in a number of other situations, according to a 2023 guide by the advisor lead generation and client matchmaking service SmartAsset. "Upstream gifting is a strategy for expediting the transfer of highly appreciated assets to children, while limiting the taxes that will be owed on the inheritance," it read. "Instead of giving assets directly to your children while you're still alive or including them in your will, you can transfer the property to a living parent or grandparent. In turn, they leave those assets to your children when they die, preserving the step-up in basis and saving your children on taxes." The Janus Henderson blog explained the concept through the 10,000 shares of Apple stock that an investor had bought for $800 in December 1983 and held onto as it gained $4,999,200 in value. If the investor simply passes the holdings to the next heir in line, the accumulated capital gains just transfer to the next generation. That beneficiary could get the step-up in basis — meaning that the value for the stock would count for tax purposes on that of the day the heir inherited the position — but only if the investor had died. Instead, the investor shifts the stock up one generation. So when that recipient passes the holdings back down at death, the original investor can get the stock back at the stepped-up basis and avoid the capital gains taxes. "Of course, this strategy requires planning and communication between all parties involved," the Janus Henderson blog said. "And as simple as it is, the strategy is not without risk. What if Grandpa incurs large medical bills or meets the second love of his life? What if he does not live for another year? What if the law changes to eliminate the step-up in basis at death? All these risks — and more — must be weighed before engaging in this strategy. It is essential for investors to retain the advice of their tax preparer or accountant and their attorney before implementing this technique." READ MORE: Using tax-aware long-short vehicles to track down alpha The fact that people are living longer signals the need for more often-difficult conversations about how to transfer assets with the greatest tax efficiency, Rizzuto said. When using the upstream gifting approach, families may even decide to send the assets to "another trusted individual" who isn't a relative, he noted. The important part is planning it out in advance. "I can't just go out on the street and find an older person and say, 'Hey, I've got this idea. Can you help me out?" Rizzuto said. "There has to be some planning and communication that goes on here."
Montreal Gazette
23-07-2025
- Montreal Gazette
Alleged Montreal Mafia leader Stefano Sollecito has bail hearing in murder case
Montreal Crime By A Quebec Superior Court judge has begun hearing evidence in a request from Stefano Sollecito, an alleged leader of the Montreal Mafia, who is seeking a release on bail following his arrest in June in Project Alliance, an investigation that resulted in the arrests of several organized crime figures. Sollecito, 57, is seeking the release for health reasons. On Wednesday, he was brought into a prisoner's dock in the courtroom in a wheelchair and was assisted by two women who appeared to be nurses. One of the women moved his wheelchair around awkwardly, looking for a spot in the cramped space from which Sollecito could follow the hearing comfortably. When he was arrested in 2015, in Project Magot-Mastiff, a different investigation involving organized crime figures, he managed to get bail because he had cancer. Since then, Sollecito has lost a lot of his hair and he didn't appear to be in good health on Wednesday. Bettina Rizzuto, the sister of Leonardo Rizzuto, 56, another person who was arrested last month in Project Alliance, was in the courtroom. She stood up while the two women brought Sollecito into the courtroom and she waved to him. Justice Alexandre Boucher repeated an order that a publication ban has been placed on all of the evidence heard during Sollecito's bail hearing. The judge is expected to hear evidence over the course of two days. The first witness to testify on Wednesday was David Desrochers, a Montreal police detective and the lead investigator in Project Alliance. Sollecito, Rizzuto and other men are charged with the murder of Lorenzo LoPresti, who was killed on Oct. 24, 2011, in the St-Laurent borough. Sollecito and Rizzuto are also charged with conspiring to kill LoPresti and seven other organized crime figures between 2011 and 2019.
Montreal Gazette
11-07-2025
- Politics
- Montreal Gazette
Opinion: Automatic release must be reformed for cases involving organized crime
Op Eds Montreal is in the middle of a quiet war. On one side, law enforcement scores rare wins like the June 12 arrests of alleged Mafia leaders including Leonardo Rizzuto and Stefano Sollecito in a sweeping police operation across Quebec. On the other, violence keeps erupting in incidents such as the fatal shooting of a man in a Brossard park on July 2, which Longueuil police said may have been gang-related. The problem isn't that police aren't doing their job. It's that the law keeps handing criminal networks a second life. Take Nicola Spagnolo. An alleged associate of the Rizzuto clan, he was serving time for a 2020 stabbing. He had been turned down for parole due in part to affiliations with organized crime denied by Spagnolo but noted by Correctional Service Canada (CSC). And yet, under Section 127 of the Corrections and Conditional Release Act (CCRA), he automatically qualified for release after serving two-thirds of his sentence — until he was arrested in June as a murder suspect in the same case as Rizzuto and Sollecito, while he was still behind bars. If no new charges had been filed, he would have walked free. This is not a flaw. It is a design failure. The CCRA's statutory release mechanism was built on ideals of rehabilitation and reintegration. But in cases involving links to organized crime, those ideals are being exploited. CSC's assessments flagged Spagnolo as 'an active member of a security threat group or organized crime.' Yet legally, that status wasn't enough to deny his release — because in Canada, an assessment of affiliation with organized crime alone does not qualify as a sufficient reason to override statutory release. This must change. Parliament should amend Section 127 to create an exception to automatic release for individuals with links to organized crime. This exception should not be based on subjective suspicion, but on clear CSC assessments, intelligence, and behavioural records while in custody. This is about protecting the public, not punishing indefinitely. In addition, Canada should implement a national threat profile registry, which would classify inmates based on their operational risk rather than just their criminal record. This registry would allow authorities to consider gang membership, leadership roles and persistent criminal associations in evaluating release eligibility. Similar models are already used in certain situations in jurisdictions like Germany and the Netherlands. Moreover, release should not mean freedom without oversight. Canada's statutory-release system does permit curfews, halfway-house residency and other conditions, yet safeguards are limited when release itself is mandatory. For individuals flagged under the proposed registry, electronic monitoring, communication bans and mandatory reintegration plans would be imposed for at least the duration of the original sentence. Reintegration isn't passive — it requires structured conditions and accountability. Provincial prosecutors should also be empowered to contest statutory releases when public safety is at stake. Currently, their involvement in release procedures is minimal, yet they are the most familiar with the real-life consequences of letting violent gang members return to the same neighbourhoods they helped destabilize. Beyond legal reform, there's a societal dimension. Communities affected by violence are not just crime scenes — they are often left to pay the price for legal leniency. Residents lose faith in public institutions when the same names cycle through headlines and courtrooms year after year. Fighting organized crime must include breaking the cycle of predictable impunity. Montreal cannot afford to wage war on organized crime with laws that seem designed for first-time offenders. This is not about being tough on crime — it's about being smart on structural threats. Organized criminal networks exploit every loophole available. It is time the law stopped helping them. We need sentencing legislation that reflects the complexity of modern criminal networks, prioritizes sustained community protection and restores trust in the justice system. For that to happen, automatic release for documented members of organized crime must end. Anything less is an invitation to repeat the same cycle, with more victims next time.
Time of India
06-07-2025
- Time of India
Mafia prince turned lawyer Leonardo Rizzuto arrested in massive Quebec crime raid, bar suspends licence
Live Events (You can now subscribe to our (You can now subscribe to our Economic Times WhatsApp channel The Barreau du Québec has provisionally suspended the law license of prominent lawyer Leonardo Rizzuto , effective July 2, following his arrest in a sweeping police operation targeting organized 56, was licensed in 1999 and practiced in Montreal and Laval. He is the youngest son of the late Vito Rizzuto, once Montreal's most powerful Mafia boss, and is believed to currently lead the infamous Rizzuto crime family About 150 officers from the Montreal Police (SPVM) and the Sûreté du Québec executed coordinated raids in cities across Quebec as part of "Project Alliance," a three-year investigation into organized crime. The operation led to 11 arrests of men aged 27–57 with alleged ties to the Italian Mafia, the Hells Angels, and street and six others were charged with first-degree murder in the 2011 killing of alleged Montreal Mafia member Lorenzo Lopresti . All 11 suspects are accused of involvement in multiple murders or attempted murders between 2011 and 2021, either as perpetrators or Article 122.0.1 of Quebec's Code of Professions, any lawyer charged with offenses carrying sentences of five years or more must face licence suspension to protect public trust. The Barreau's disciplinary council acted swiftly after Rizzuto was charged with first-degree murder and conspiracy to commit murder. While the suspension is temporary, it bars him from practicing law or using the title "lawyer" during criminal carries a heavy name; his father, Vito 'Teflon Don' Rizzuto, once led Canada's most powerful Mafia network until he died in 2013. The Rizzuto lineage dates back to Nicolo Rizzuto, who in the 1970s seized Montreal's Sicilian Mafia leadership amid violent turf a press conference, SQ Chief Insp. Marc Charbonneau called the arrests a 'major blow… one of the most significant operations in recent decades'. Deputy director Benoit Dubé emphasized how the probe provided closure for victims' families:'Every act of violence … police joined together … to give some answers back to the families.'Retired detective André Gélinas described Rizzuto's arrest as symbolic, effectively decapitating the Rizzuto family's leadership.
Global News
05-07-2025
- Global News
Quebec bar suspends law licence of alleged Mafia leader Leonardo Rizzuto
Quebec's bar association has suspended the lawyer's licence of Leonardo Rizzuto, who was one of 11 people arrested last month in a police operation targeting organized crime. The Barreau du Québec announced this week that it had provisionally suspended Rizzuto's licence as of July 2. The 56-year-old is the son of the late crime boss Vito Rizzuto and the presumed head of one of Canada's most notorious crime families. Get daily National news Get the day's top news, political, economic, and current affairs headlines, delivered to your inbox once a day. Sign up for daily National newsletter Sign Up By providing your email address, you have read and agree to Global News' Terms and Conditions and Privacy Policy He and six other men have been charged with first-degree murder in the 2011 killing of alleged Montreal Mafia member Lorenzo Lopresti. The joint police operation last month by Montreal and Quebec provincial police led to the arrest of 11 men between 27 and 57 years old, who police allege are associated with the Mafia, the Hells Angels and street gangs. Story continues below advertisement The suspects allegedly participated in several murders and attempted murders between 2011 and 2021. The suspension said Rizzuto, who obtained his licence in 1999, had practised law in Montreal and Laval.
