You may want to examine or delve into the phrase, which has become pervasive in conference calls and grates on many; ‘It’s almost like a joke’
4 min
Ruben Roy isn’t a guy who tends to beat himself up, but he’s still chagrined about what he said on an earnings call last month.
A managing director at Stifel Financial , Roy dialled in to hear the chief executive of a healthcare company discuss its latest results. During the Q&A, Roy asked the speaker to elaborate on his remarks about investment opportunities.
“I wanted to double-click a bit on some of the commentary you had,” Roy said, instantly cringing.
One of the fastest-spreading corporate buzzwords in recent years, “double-click” is both polarising and pervasive. Particularly on Wall Street, the figure of speech is now being used as a shorthand for examining something more fully, akin to double-clicking to see a computer folder’s contents. Some, like Roy, find the idiom obnoxious or twee. Double-click defenders say the phrase encourages deeper thinking.
Either way, it’s become a verbal tic du jour. Executives and analysts dropped double-click 644 times in corporate conference calls and events during the first half of the year, according to VIQ Solutions, up from 139 times in the same period of 2020.
“It’s almost like a joke. People are like, oh here we go with double-click,” says Roy, who’d been trying to avoid using the term when he accidentally let it slip. Colleagues, he says, haven’t let him forget it.
Annie Mosbacher, a Los Angeles-based marketer, recalls snapping to attention last year when she heard an executive use the phrase during a strategy meeting. Afterward, she and colleagues discussed it: “It was like, oh my gosh, double-click? I guess this is a thing now?”
The new jargon makes her roll her eyes. “Can’t we just say ‘this is an area we need to focus on?’” she says. “We regurgitate this sort of lingo as though it means something, and usually it’s about trying to be impressive more than anything else.”
Not so, says Ruben Linder, who’s owned a small audio and video production business in San Antonio for 25 years. These days, with the rise of technology and a more hectic corporate life, Linder says people need reminders to stop and examine what matters—to double-click, if you will.
“The term is simple, but it’s really profound,” he says. He tries to carve out time to go to a cafe twice monthly with a notebook and engage in reflection.
“I’ll double-click on my business, double-click on my life,” he says. “I double-click on everything now.”
Double-click lingo has leapfrogged beyond corporate America. While CEOs including Walmart’s Douglas McMillon and Nvidia ’s Jensen Huang have deployed the term, so, too, have congressional representatives, influencers and authors such as parenting guru Dr. Becky Kennedy.
The phrase is “innovative,” says Beth DelGiacco, a vice president of corporate communications at biotech company Argenx , who praises its efficiency.
“It’s only a few syllables. Everyone knows what you mean when you say it,” says DelGiacco, who regularly trots it out with peers.
Tech-inflected buzzwords are especially apt to gain traction—think “network,” “bandwidth” or “take offline”—because they can sound smart or cutting-edge, says Doug Guilbeault, an assistant professor at UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business who has studied corporate jargon.
The inventor of the literal double-click, former Apple designer Bill Atkinson, isn’t convinced. Reached while boating on a recent weekday, Atkinson, now retired, says he’s never heard anyone use double-click as a metaphor and would steer clear of such usage himself, preferring more straightforward language.
He adds that since inventing the function in 1979, he’s come to regret it. He now thinks an extra “Shift” button on the mouse would have been more user-friendly.
“The double-click was a mistake,” says Atkinson, who left tech in 1995 to pursue nature photography. Personally, he double-clicks less frequently these days, given the rise of mouseless devices like tablets and smartphones.
“I double-tap, or I tap,” he says. “I long-press.”
Buzzwords tend to come and go, says HR consultant Nancy Settle-Murphy, noting that other tech-inspired jargon, such as “RTFM”—or read the f—ing manual—are less commonly used today than they once were.
“There are fewer manuals now,” says Settle-Murphy, who recently installed a video doorbell at her home and notes it didn’t come with any pictures or diagrams.
Corporate jargon can be alienating. At a conference, Settle-Murphy was thrown when an audience member asked the speaker to double-click on a point they’d made.
“I thought, ‘these are slides, there’s no link, how can they double-click?’” she says, admitting she later searched online to find the new meaning.
Double-click has a long pedigree in the sales world. Matt Sunshine, head of the Center for Sales Strategy, which trains salespeople, says when he sold ad spots for a local radio station in Dallas in the 1990s, peers commonly used the term.
“Sales leaders would say, ‘Hey, you need to make sure you double-click on that’ with your prospects,” Sunshine says, meaning delve more deeply into any issues customers might raise, as in “Tell me more.”
While he doesn’t know exactly when it first took off, he says the phrase neatly encapsulates a core principle in effective sales strategy, in which salespeople seek to identify and address customers’ needs and concerns, instead of defaulting to one-size-fits-all pitches.
Double-clicking can help identify new business prospects, says Scott Bond, vice president of consumer services at Canadian real-estate company Rennie, which recently opened a U.S. location in Seattle.
Not long ago, Bond was on a Zoom call with his boss and some new business contacts based in southern California. The group hit it off, and afterward, Bond found himself mulling possibilities.
“I looked at my boss and said, hold on, I think we’re being presented with an opportunity here,” he says. “Why don’t we dive in and learn a little more?” His boss agreed, and the company is now planning to open its second American location in the Palm Springs area.
“We double-clicked,” he says.
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Strong family financial planning can help reduce taxes and support younger generations. From intrafamily loans and asset gifts to inheritance disclaimers, strategic cooperation can create meaningful financial benefits—when families have the trust and structure to make it work.
4 min
Happy is the family whose members—parents, grandparents and grown children—trust each other enough to cooperate on shared goals, especially financial ones. When that is truly the case, Uncle Sam’s tax rules can help as well.
This matters especially now that mortgage rates are above 7%, and many families are looking for ways to help younger members. If the elders have resources and are confident younger ones can cooperate, a family loan could make homeownership possible while providing the elders with a useful income stream.
Other strategies can actually lower taxes, such as when funding 529 plans or Roth IRAs, or when someone inherits a traditional IRA with required withdrawals larger than they will need.
Here are three strategies useful for functional families.
It is perfectly legal for families to lend money to a relative for a down payment or even a private mortgage.
But it is important not to cut corners, says Ryan McKeown, a CPA with Modern Wealth Enhancement in Minnesota. If the loan is for a down payment, be honest with the mortgage provider and have a formal agreement. The lender owes tax on the interest payments received.
If the loan is for a private mortgage, both sides should have legal representation with a formal written agreement, including payment terms. The lender owes tax on the interest, and the borrower often can deduct it if he or she itemizes.
To avoid IRS trouble, the interest rate shouldn’t be lower than the agency’s Applicable Federal Rate at the time of the loan. Currently that is about 5% for loans longer than nine years; about 4.5% for loans three to nine years; and about 4% for loans three years or less. Currently, traditional mortgage rates are generally above 7%.
In addition, the lender could use the $19,000 annual gift-tax exemption (described below) to forgive some or all of the interest or principal annually. If both lenders and borrowers are married, that is up to $76,000 a year. There is no tax for the borrower on such forgiveness, because it is from a gift.
If you’re going this route, McKeown advises against having a fixed plan to forgive the debt. Instead, do it in one-off letters specifying the amount—and keep careful records. Otherwise the IRS might try to treat the loan as a taxable gift.
Powerful tax-saving moves for families often use gift-tax provisions. Under current law, anyone can give anyone else up to $19,000 of assets annually, free of gift tax. That means a married couple with three grandchildren could give them a total of $114,000 in 2026.
The gifts can be cash or other assets, like stock. For noncash gifts, the cost basis—which is the starting point for measuring taxable gain after a sale—“carries over” to the recipient. So if someone buys $1,000 of stock and gives it away when it is worth $5,000, the recipient’s cost basis is $1,000. If the recipient later sells the shares for $8,000, the taxable gain is $7,000.
Here’s an example showing how gifts could save a family taxes. Grandma is a widow of modest means, while her child and spouse have prospered. The couple has two children, and they want to contribute $5,000 to a 529 college-savings plan for each—but they need to sell stock to do it. Their tax rate on the sale would be 18.8%, and they would need to sell about $11,000 of stock.
However, Grandma’s federal tax rate on the stock sale is 0%. If the couple gives $10,000 of shares to Grandma, she could sell them, pay no tax, and fund the grandchildren’s 529 plans. This saves about $1,000 of tax.
These moves are legal, and they could be used in other ways, such as to help a young person fund a Roth IRA.
But trust among family members is essential: Under the law, givers can’t put conditions on a gift. Grandma could use her stock proceeds to take a cruise, but she makes 529 contributions instead.
Mark Sellner, a retired tax attorney and CPA living in Sarasota, Fla., uses this strategy. His children sell stock he gives them and fund 529 plans for his grandchildren.
The family’s tax savings aren’t huge, but he likes other benefits. The sales by his children don’t boost his adjusted gross income, which in turn could raise his Medicare Irmaa premiums or his 3.8% surtax on net investment income.
Sellner doesn’t worry about his children using the funds for another purpose.
“There can’t be any strings attached to gifts. Of course, it is up to us to decide whether to make them in the future,” he says.
Two caveats: The “kiddie tax” applies to most children under age 24, and it is levied at the parents’ rate on investment income above $2,700 in 2026. Consider this before making gifts to a young person.
Investors who give away stock also forgo the step-up, an important provision that exempts assets held at death from capital-gains tax.
Sellner knows he’s losing a step-up, but says, “The children could use a little more now. Why should they wait 20 years to get it?”
A disclaimer is a highly useful strategy in which one heir renounces an inheritance in favor of another heir. Assuming family members cooperate, this can save taxes.
Here’s one example. Dad died and had a large traditional IRA that he left to Mom. She has enough assets and income to cover her expenses, and she lives in a state with a stiff estate tax. The inherited IRA would put her estate over the threshold.
Also surviving are three young-adult children. If Mom disclaims all or part of Dad’s IRA within nine months of his death, that amount could go directly to the children. They will have 10 years to empty the account, and the family as a whole will likely save estate and income taxes.
Disclaimers have many key details, especially regarding beneficiary documents. Although heirs have great freedom in choosing what assets to disclaim, the rules about who gets disclaimed property are rigid. It is best if the original owner names tiers of heirs so that if one disclaims, the next recipient is clear.
