Hugh B. RobertsAll Articles
It is Possible to Be Equitable
Thirty-five years ago, Roland Spongberg started a restaurant company with one El Pollo Loco in Long Beach, CA. Today, WKS Restaurant Company employs 12,000 employees across 375 restaurants in 19 states operating Denny’s, El Pollo Loco, Krispy Kreme, and Wendy’s. From a pure family perspective, with six children, Roland initially thought he would simply divide his estate by six. However, as an owner of a business with the family involved, he realized quickly it was much more complicated. Roland had family working in the business with different levels of leadership, family not working in the [...]
What Will Your Estate Planning Produce – Gratefulness or Resentment?
As of July 2021, the lifetime exemption is $11.7M per person and $23.4M per married couple. However, we expect a significant reduction in the lifetime exemption due to President Biden's tax proposals, if not this year, then no later than December 31, 2025. As a result, common questions we are hearing are: How will gifting affect my lifestyle? Will this adversely affect our children? Parents desire to 'treat each of our children fairly.' Therefore, 'if I'm going to gift to one child, I need to give my other children a similar amount. Splitting the cake in half may seem [...]
Family Business: Harboring Gratitude versus Resentment
Listen in to Hugh’s insight into how to create meaningful strategies to ensure you are harboring gratefulness versus unintended resentment amongst family. A grateful heart is significant when we feel we’ve gone above and beyond to provide something for our children/grandchildren. Knowing our children are thankful usually inspires us to want to do more for them. Over the past year, my partners and I at The Rawls Group have constantly reminded our clients of the need to utilize their lifetime exemption, which is currently $11.7M per person and $23.4M per married couple. We expect a [...]
It’s Tough Being Your Kid!
How do you mentor a child who is interested in joining your business, give them the greatest possibilities for succeeding, without making them feel and believe they need to be just like you? First, embrace that your child is different from you. So, if they feel they have to be like you to succeed, they are doomed to failure. Developing your successor child/children will involve a variety of complex areas – all of which are interdependent on the other. You will have to clarify expectations, define roles and responsibilities, leverage mentors, understand and embrace differences in communication and leadership [...]
Episode 1: What Is Changing in the Areas of Estate Tax?
With a change in the President, comes changes in estate tax law. This can provide short term opportunities, as well as a lot of speculation looking into the future. As such, there are many questions and what ifs. To help navigate this unknown environment we have asked our good friends and experts at Crowe to chime in. Kevin Gilbreath, a Tax Partner with Crowe and The Rawls Group's own succession planners Hugh Roberts and David Weaver will be discussing over the next seven episodes, advanced tax strategies in the “Planning Post Pandemic and Political Unrest: [...]
