For a husband and wife, the pattern of asset ownership in retirement is often a continuation of the way assets were owned in earlier years, whether the assets were owned by an entity, in co-ownership or by one or the other of the couple. However, that can produce expected (and undesirable) outcomes during the retirement years, particularly in terms of self-employment tax liability1 and the handling of passive losses.2 The prudent planning approach is to review the way assets are held well before retirement.