What Is an A-B Trust? An A-B trust is a joint trust created by a married couple for the purpose of minimizing estate taxes. It is formed with each spouse placing assets in the trust and naming as the final beneficiary any suitable person except the other spouse. The trust gets its name from the
What Is the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority? The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority is a government-owned investment organization that manages the sovereign wealth fund for Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates. According to the Sovereign Wealth Fund Institute’s rankings, the ADIA sovereign wealth fund ranked as the third-largest in the world in 2022 with $708.75 billion in
What Is an Abusive Tax Shelter? An abusive tax shelter is a type of illegal investment that claims to reduce the investor’s income tax liability without changing the value of the investor’s income or assets. Abusive tax shelters serve no economic purpose other than lowering the federal or state tax owed by the investor. Oftentimes
What Is the Abu Dhabi Investment Council (ADIC)? Abu Dhabi Investment Council (ADIC) is a sovereign wealth fund owned by the government of Abu Dhabi, the capital city of the United Arab Emirates (UAE). ADIC is wholly owned and administered by the UAE and is funded by revenues generated by the country’s oil industry. ADIC
What Is the Automated Customer Account Transfer Service (ACATS)? The Automated Customer Account Transfer Service (ACATS) is a system that facilitates the transfer of securities from one trading account to another at a different brokerage firm or bank. The National Securities Clearing Corporation (NSCC) developed the ACATS system, replacing the previous manual asset transfer system
What Are Accelerated Death Benefits? An accelerated death benefit (ADB) is a benefit that can be attached to a life insurance policy that enables the policyholder to receive cash advances against the death benefit in the case of being diagnosed with a terminal illness. Many individuals who choose an accelerated death benefit have less than one
What Is Accelerated Depreciation? Accelerated depreciation is any method of depreciation used for accounting or income tax purposes that allows greater depreciation expenses in the early years of the life of an asset. Accelerated depreciation methods, such as double-declining balance (DDB), means there will be higher depreciation expenses in the first few years and lower
What Is an Accelerated Bookbuild? An accelerated bookbuild is a form of offering in the equity capital markets. It involves offering shares in a short time period, with little to no marketing. The bookbuild of the offering is done very quickly in one or two days. Underwriters may sometimes guarantee a minimum price and sale
What Is an Abbreviated New Drug Submission (ANDS)? An Abbreviated New Drug Submission (ANDS) is a written request to Health Canada to obtain marketing approval for a generic drug. An Abbreviated New Drug Submission must be approved by Health Canada, the country’s federal department in charge of national health care, under Canada’s Food and Drug Regulations, before
What Is Activity-Based Costing (ABC)? Activity-based costing (ABC) is a costing method that assigns overhead and indirect costs to related products and services. This accounting method of costing recognizes the relationship between costs, overhead activities, and manufactured products, assigning indirect costs to products less arbitrarily than traditional costing methods. However, some indirect costs, such as
