As a business owner, you know that change is inevitable. From team members and company growth to overhead costs, consumer demands, and all things between, your organization is a dynamic entity – flexibly moving and adjusting as the market shifts over time. You have built a resilient company trusted by employees, investors, and customers. But what happens if you, the leader and visionary, decide it is time to move on? In a perfect world, business succession is a smooth transition where most customers and stakeholders are none the wiser about a significant difference at the top level. However, sometimes the leadership change needs to be sudden, maybe for personal reasons like illness or even death, and how do you ensure operations continue and your assets, family, and stakeholders are well-protected? A business succession plan needs to be in place, ready to be executed when needed. Without one, your security, integrity, company, employees, and investors are all at risk. So, what exactly IS a business succession plan, and what does it entail?
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Estate Planning: Your Guide to See-Through Trusts
You are working hard – building wealth, utilizing retirement accounts, and maybe already talking with financial advisors. You have a clear path to the goals you set for yourself long ago – even if they may have changed a bit as life ebbs and flows. So, what happens next? We hear a lot about planning for retirement, but estate planning is equally important. The latter requires foresight, but it also ensures that your loved ones are taken care of and that your hard work now can still benefit them later. To efficiently protect your well-cultivated retirement assets from creditors, and distribute them to your chosen beneficiaries, a See-Through Trust should be explored and created. See-Through Trusts are a key estate-planning tool, but there are a few things you should know before moving forward.
Understanding How the 99.5% Act Affects You
On March 25, 2021, Senator Bernie Sanders and Senator Sheldon Whitehouse introduced the “For the 99.5 Percent Act” (referred to in this blog as the “99.5% Act”), a piece of legislation that would change federal estate and gift taxes. Here are the highlights you need to know:
- Reduces the federal estate tax exemption from $11.7 million to $3.5 million
- Reduces the gift tax exemption from $11.7 million to $1 million
- Tax rates increase for gift, estate, and generation-skipping tax (GST) at a progressive rate
Post-Election Tax Strategies
Now that tax season is wrapping up, we can all take a deep breath. With the pandemic looming over all of us in 2020, change has become the only thing we can consistently count on these days.
The Importance of a Business Succession Plan
It’s often difficult for us to think of the future as individuals, and even harder to think about it in terms of our larger counterparts, such as the businesses that we own and run. This is particularly true if it involves planning for the worst possible outcomes in our future, such as unexpected retirement, potential disability, or untimely death. When you build your own business and watch it flourish from the ground up, it can be disheartening to think of the possibilities of its disbandment or transfer to a new owner.
What to Look For in a Guardian For Your Child
Have you considered who will take on the guardianship role for your children or family members with special needs if something happens to you?
All About White-Collar Crimes
When a person hears the word “crime,” images of bank robberies or people being mugged in dark alleys easily come to mind. But violent crime isn’t the only form of crime. Crimes committed by business and government professionals with the intention of gaining a financial advantage, property, or services, without using violent means, is known … Read moreAll About White-Collar Crimes
New Year’s Resolution Estate Planning!
It’s the new year and with that comes new goals! Usually, people vow to get in better shape or to save money for something big. However, we tend to start off strong and have no follow-through. Creating an estate plan is a lot like getting into better shape. We all know we should do it, but most of us never make it to the finish line because the task seems daunting.
The Proposition That Passed With Only 51.4%
Did you follow the results of the vote on the Propositions that were on the November Ballot?
Changes to Estate Planning Due to Proposition 19
In November’s recent election, California passed Proposition 19 (Prop 19), which has changed two important California property tax assessments that could have a lasting impact on your estate planning.