Starting a small business is a dream come true for many people. If you are hoping to realize the American dream of becoming an entrepreneur, planning ahead is the key to the long-term success of your business. This is especially true if you plan to pass the business down to the next generation. In fact, the lack of planning is one of the leading reasons why so many family businesses fail to make a successful transition from one generation to the next. There are a number of strategies you can use … [Read more...] about Is a Family Limited Partnership Right for My Business?
Small Business Planning
How Can You Pass a Business Onto Your Kids?
An estate planning attorney should be consulted if you are a business owner so you can take steps to ensure you have made appropriate plans for the survival of your company after you are gone. You want to ensure that your company is able to survive long beyond your years so you can pass your business down to the next generation. Your company should serve as your legacy, but it is up to you to make certain that you can actually pass your business on. There are different ways to … [Read more...] about How Can You Pass a Business Onto Your Kids?
Steps to Create a Business Plan
Starting a business is one of the most exciting things you can do. This gives you the flexibility and freedom you’ve been dreaming of for quite some time. Of course, there’s more to this than meets the eye. Unfortunately, just because you start a business it doesn’t mean it will become a big success. Instead, there are many steps you must take in order for this to happen. The steps you take to create a business plan don’t have to be exactly the same as the next person. Even so, you need to … [Read more...] about Steps to Create a Business Plan
Protect Your Business Interests with an LLC
Estate planning is a little different for every individual and family. Some can get by with the simplest of plans, focusing on asset distribution when they die and incapacity planning to protect them from a loss of legal decision-making capacity. Others need special tools like trusts, or family limited partnerships to ensure that money stays in the family. If you own a business, you have special interests that need to be safeguarded too. Your personal assets, for example, need to be protected … [Read more...] about Protect Your Business Interests with an LLC
LLC Formation: How it Works and Why It Matters
For Indiana businesses, the limited liability company – or LLC – can be a powerful tool for protecting personal assets by shielding entrepreneurs from personal liability. From a business standpoint, that can help to ensure that your home, car, and other personal property are not at risk if the business is ever sued for any reason. The LLC’s real value extends well beyond that protection, however, and extends even into the realm of estate planning. To maximize the benefits that you can enjoy from … [Read more...] about LLC Formation: How it Works and Why It Matters
Can a Partnership Be an LLC? Get the Answers You Need
Estate planning can be complex even under the simplest of circumstances. When you own your own business, however, that complexity seems to grow by leaps and bounds. Whether it’s asset protection, succession plans, or buy/sell agreements, there always seems to be some aspect of the company’s structure and operations affecting your overall estate planning effort. For those who share ownership of their company with another person, that partnership can raise other estate planning questions. For … [Read more...] about Can a Partnership Be an LLC? Get the Answers You Need
Six Reasons Why You Need an LLC Operating Agreement
As estate planning professionals who have helped many clients who own their own businesses, we’ve been involved with more than our fair share of Limited Liability Companies (LLC). The LLC continues to be one of the most popular ways for entrepreneurs to organize their companies, as it provides an affordable and more manageable way for many small business owners to limit their liability and separate their personal assets from their business interests. For many of these entrepreneurs, however, … [Read more...] about Six Reasons Why You Need an LLC Operating Agreement
Why Your Business Structure Matters
When you’re committed to sound estate planning, there are many different things to consider. If you own your own business and want to create a sound estate plan, those considerations quickly multiply. Though many business owners never realize it until it’s too late, your company can have a major impact on important estate plan considerations ranging from tax concerns to asset protection. More importantly, a failure to recognize that potential impact could have dire consequences for the … [Read more...] about Why Your Business Structure Matters
How the LLC Limited Liability Can Aid Your Estate Planning Efforts
If you’ve been worried about leaving your assets vulnerable to predatory lawsuits, creditors, and other risks, you’re not alone. That’s one of the biggest concerns drawing so many Americans to estate planning these days. The problem that so many people have, however, is that they often end up failing to match their actual concerns with the right solutions. As people seek out free and low-cost estate planning tools on the internet and elsewhere, they often fail to understand that these tools … [Read more...] about How the LLC Limited Liability Can Aid Your Estate Planning Efforts
Estate Planning for Your Business: The LLC Corporate Structure
If you’re an adult in the United States, it’s a given that you’re at least somewhat familiar with corporations. And there’s a pretty good chance that you’ve seen at least one business name that had the LLC designation after it – indicating that the enterprise is organized as a Limited Liability Company. For the last two decades in Indiana, the LLC structure has been used by businesses in the state to protect owners’ personal assets from liability that their companies might incur. What you may … [Read more...] about Estate Planning for Your Business: The LLC Corporate Structure
