A Cash Balance Plan May be a Great Tax- Reducing Benefit to A Business Owner
By: Steven E. Zeller CFP, CExP, AIF Like most business owners, you’re likely exploring ways to strategically grow your revenue, increase profits, and minimize taxes. This is a common goal. As your cash flows increase, you may find yourself seeking ways to reduce your growing tax burden. Often, we explore sensible capital expenditures or business reinvestments that align with your strategic goals, which is a healthy exercise. But sometimes, business owners could benefit from strategies to accumulate personal assets and…
Choosing Your Team of Advisors in Business Exit Planning
Proper business exit planning needs to be completed through an established process. Over the years of providing this type of planning for business owners, we have developed a methodical and straightforward exit planning process. In the first phase of the exit planning process, the “Create a Game plan” phase, the last step is choosing your required outside advisors for your exit planning needs. Every owner has unique exit planning needs and requires different advisors at different times. The Exit Planning…
The Family Meeting Series: Discussion of a Shared Value – Gratitude
Gratitude – What a powerful yet simple thing in our lives; to have a mindset of gratitude – We can all benefit from a continued effort to master it. Experts have concluded that it is vital for a happy life and a healthy family. It’s a wonderful value to share within a family. In the past, I have written articles about Family Legacy Development for families with significant wealth. Family Legacy Development is vital if a family wishes to preserve…
Family Values: A Critical Component of Family Legacy Planning
There are many things to consider when families invest their time, emotions, and effort into the development, success, and sustainability of their family legacy. Please reference my previous articles: Preserving Family Wealth is a Generational Effort; Begin the Journey of Developing a Family Legacy with a Family Retreat; Family Legacy Development: The Anatomy and Importance of Family Meetings. There are many elements that contribute to the family dynamics which may help unify the family, or create roadblocks that members will…
What’s Your Purpose in Retirement?
Retirement can be an exciting milestone. It’s also a major lifestyle change. Oftentimes, your daily workday tasks (professionally or if you run your own business) will likely no longer exist. Transitioning into retirement for some is an easy process. Perhaps their profession is not their absolute passion, and they always had other pursuits and hobbies they are ready to explore once exiting from their day job. But for others, their profession or business is their passion. They put all their…
How a Business Owner Can Utilize an ESOP to Exit Their Business
One of the more challenging steps for a Business Owner in planning their exit is determining the best option for selling their business, which is often based on their personal situation, goals for the company, employees, and family members. However, one of the more tax-efficient strategies and options for the sale of the business is the Owner selling to an ESOP or an Employee Stock Ownership Plan. An ESOP is a tax-qualified retirement plan (profit sharing and/or money-purchase plan) that…
How Business Owners Can Increase Value in An Economic Downturn
Economic downturns can be stressful for business owners. It’s great riding the waves of increased business revenue and profit during economic upswings, but being prepared for downturns are just as important, if not more, for a few reasons: The first is that you want your business to be able to weather the storm and survive with minimal sacrifices and while not becoming more vulnerable to competition. The second is that during a downturn your business can become “leaner and meaner”…
A Methodical Way to Increase the Value of Your Business – As Part of An Exit Plan
Let’s face it, when you reach the point of your career as a business owner and becomes time to start planning your exit, you will ultimately want to exit your business by either selling it to company insiders, family, or to a third party, for the highest possible price, in the most tax efficient manner, and on your terms.
When is the Right Time to Get a Valuation of Your Business in Planning Your Exit?
As I have mentioned many times before when writing articles on business exit planning, doing a proper exit plan takes time and usually requires a methodical process. Over the years, I have developed an exit planning process that was manifested out of the knowledge of a comprehensive financial planning process, and what I have learned over many years of being a member of the Business Enterprise Institute.
A Key Employee Incentive Plan is Vital for a Successful Business Sale
There are many critical areas that need to be addressed by the owner of a business when preparing their company for a successful sale to a third party. What defines a successful exit? Being able to exit their business for their desired amount or higher, being able to exit on their terms, and do so in the most tax-efficient manner.
The Business Owner Will Exit Their Business, One Way or Another
When discussing business exit planning, there are some interesting statistics: 100% of business owners will leave their businesses, whether planned or otherwise; 79% pf business owners plan to exit their businesses in the next 10 years or less; 80% of owners believe that a successful exit will result from planning and action items they implement. But here is the catch – only 17% of owners have created a written plan… and often it takes 3 to 5 years to develop one.
Preparing for an Unexpected Fatal Illness
Alright, I could think of many other topics to discuss with you that are more positive than this one, but this subject is an important one. We all may face a serious illness at one point or another in our life, and certainly our life will end eventually.
Handling Sudden Wealth: A Guide to Protecting, Managing and Utilizing Sudden Wealth
If you are a person that has just had the experience of a “sudden wealth” event, congratulations and be careful. The experience of sudden wealth, whether it is a sizable inheritance, a legal settlement, a business-related windfall, or a lottery win, is a life changer. It can be a blessing or a curse depending on how well you prepare yourself emotionally and financially. Sudden wealth requires careful consideration and planning.
Family Legacy Development: The Anatomy and Importance of Family Meetings
The expected wealth transfer from the baby boomer generation to the millennial generation is expected to be massive. According to a 2019 article from the “Business Insider”, the Great Wealth Transfer will see an estimated $68 trillion passed down from boomers over the next 30 years.
Begin the Journey of Developing a Family Legacy with a Family Retreat
In my previous article, “Preserving Family Wealth is a Generational Effort,” I mentioned that “Wealth equals capital, which equals potential (Wealth = Capital = Potential).” In other words, a healthier way to view family wealth, is to view it as capital that can be applied in a way that maximizes the well-being, purpose, love, productivity, family unity, and the positive impact the family can have on the community and causes that are near and dear to them. These attributes are capitalized on when a Family Legacy focuses on the three forms of family wealth (or capital), which are financial capital, human capital, and intellectual capital.
Preserving Family Wealth is a Generational Effort
Wealth within a family can be a double edged sword. It can serve as an incredible resource to benefit its family members, but it can also be destructive and divisive. Destructive in the sense that if not properly tended to and respected, wealth can destroy the purpose and outcomes of individual family members, and divisive in the sense that it can damage the bond between family members and cause a splintering of the family.
Asking Powerful Questions
Asking questions is a powerful way to lead yourself to deep understanding. Asking questions helps lead to personal breakthroughs. Asking questions is an important tool for effective listening, learning, understanding, gaining clarity and a useful tool to help develop a personal vision for yourself.
Exiting Your Business Happily, Often Requires a Strong Personal Vision
Exiting a business is a very significant event for most owners. Realizing the importance and giving attention to this step in the exit planning process, and doing so well ahead of the actual exit, will help position him or her to have a healthy, meaningful, happy life, after the exit occurs.
Considering the Roth IRA Conversion after the Secure Act
Considering the Roth IRA Conversion after the Secure Act After the passage of the SECURE Act, in December of 2019, many laws were included that impact IRA inheritances, IRA distribution rules, and IRA and other Retirement accounts in relation to estate planning strategies. Please reference my previous article which discusses these areas at a greater length. But one area that has always presented planning opportunities, and still continues to do so, is the Roth IRA conversion. When we refer to…
Build a Successful Business Exit Plan by Using a Planning Process
As a business owner, planning the exit from ownership of your business is probably the single most important decision you will make. When to exit, how much to walk away with, who to sell it to, what’s the most tax efficient strategy in your circumstance, what timeline is most suitable, and what are the areas of business that need to be improved upon to make it marketable, etc.? Those are just some of the things that need to be considered….
