The accumulation of financial resources enables a business owner to become free of credit guarantees, initiate an exit strategy, and empower succession by transferring leadership and control of the business to partners, family members or key manager successors
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In “Consider the Unknown and Have A Plan for The Future”, Kendall Rawls shares that succession planning isn’t instinctively associated with growth. Rather, it is associated more closely with planning for an end. It is easy to back-burner conversations and planning around succession because to be quite frank, it has received a bad rap. [...]
The majority of owner’s we interact with are in what Jeff Bannon refers to in this article as “Succession Limbo.” The most common reasons we see owner's "stuck" is either fear of making a poor decision or lack of clarity on planning options available to them. To provide a way out of succession limbo [...]
Franchisors are deeply concerned about franchisee’s lack of clarity of a succession plan and preparedness to execute one. To motivate franchisees and to protect their brand, some more seasoned franchisors have created requirements for franchisees to identify their successors who must be formally approved prior to any transition of ownership or executive management. Failure [...]
The retail automotive industry is one of the most regulated by both state and federal authorities. This is in part because dealerships are some of the largest producers in the United States of financing and insurance products, in addition to the automobile sales and service. In 2017 the Tax Cut and Jobs Act of [...]
Probably nothing, unless you plan to die soon! I happened to be with a client with whom I have worked since 1991, on the day President Trump was elected. That led us to examine the political climate over the past 26 years. We reminded ourselves that the 1980’s had been a Republican era (but Democrats [...]
“But I love all my kids equally and I want to treat them fairly!” exclaimed Ted, the exasperated business owner who was trying to figure out his estate plan. This sentiment is voiced over and over by my dealer clients leading to many discussions on ‘why equal is not fair’! It’s easy to relate to [...]
The Internal Revenue Service has proposed regulation changes that impact tax consequences of stock gifts or sales to family members in a family business environment. As a result, the valuation discounts that have been a cornerstone to family business succession planning may no longer be available for certain transfers. These changes could go into effect as [...]
The inflation-adjusted 2016 estate and gift tax exemption limits are set at $5.45 million per individual or $10.9 million per couple. This means that if you are a single business owner, you can leave up to $5.45 million to heirs and pay no federal estate or gift tax. Likewise, if you are married you can [...]
Most people believe that succession planning is synonymous with estate planning; wills, trusts, estate tax, life insurance, franchisor/manufacturer approval or gifts to family members. No doubt estate planning is an important component of succession planning. However, for anyone who has struggled with family squabbles, successor development, retaining and recruiting top talent, and unreasonable strategic partners [...]
Former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld was widely ridiculed for his “what we do not know” response during a 2002 Department of Defense news briefing. In part, Rumsfeld said about threat assessments, ‘As we know, there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is [...]
