BUSINESS SUCCESSION/
CONTINUITY PLANNING
Owning a business comes with its own specific set of challenges, and those challenges can often become more complicated when passing a business on, or alternatively, obtaining a business as a junior owner. Pulse recognizes the difficulties that come with succession planning, and can offer various effective solutions for the future of your business.
The first step is recognizing your options, and the specific challenges that go hand in hand:
Your Options
- Transfer your business to your family during your lifetime.
- Transfer your business to your family through your estate.
- Sell your business during your lifetime.
- Have the decedent’s estate sell your business.
Your Challenges*
- Gift Tax Expenses can be avoided by taking advantage of annual exclusion gifts, gift tax exemption, and creating a FLP or LLC and transferring fractional interest at discounts. You can also create a grantor retained annuity trust (GRAT).
- Estate Tax Expenses can be avoided by taking advantage of estate tax exclusion, or utilizing the FLP/LLC strategy.
- Capital Gains Tax, which becomes an issue when you sell during your lifetime, can be avoided if you consider an installment sale, ESOP, or utilize a charitable remainder trust, or a intentionally defective grantor trust.
The next step is outlining a succession plan, in detail:
Delegate who will have the most responsibility and involvement after the transition. Defining who will manage and own will ensure that the hands you leave your business in will be enforced.
Ask yourself the key questions: Who does it make the most sense to sell your company to? Family? Outsiders? Insiders? All three options raise more questions specific to who offer your business to.
Family
- Is this transition going to be in the form of a sale, or a gift?
- Consider methods of transfer that will reduce transfer costs (taxes, fees, etc), such as the use of family partnerships and trusts.
Insiders
- Make sure that any agreements you have with your business partners regarding the ownership or succession of your company are in writing.
- How will the purchase of your shares be funded?
Outsiders
- Consider a potential purchaser and have a discussion with them.
- Discuss when it is most feasible and logical to make the transfer.
- Consider whether or not you are going to continue to have a part in the company or if you are going to move on entirely.
* Choosing Pulse to assist with your business succession plan will ensure that the transition of passing your business along will be smooth, simple and the best option for the future of your business. We are prepared to address the specific challenges that accompany whichever unique plan you wish to utilize, and hope to provide peace of mind about the hands you leave your business in.