Part I – Buy-Sell Planning

By: James M. Duggan

The B.E.A.S.T. is always lurking – will you be its next victim?

As entrepreneurs maintain a primary focus on running a successful business, proactive planning understandably gives way to the demands of the day. Unfortunately, the failure to proactively plan in the following areas can have catastrophic consequences for the entrepreneur:

B – Buy-Sell Planning – An absence of thoughtful buy-sell planning can lead to loss of value, litigation, and failed transition for your business interests upon a wide range of trigger events.

E – Estate Planning – An improper estate plan can lead to public disclosure of private information, faulty disposition of assets, tax inefficiency, and creditor exposure.

A – Asset Protection – All that you have worked for can be lost in a lawsuit if your business and personal asset structures are not properly insulated from creditors.

S – Succession Planning – Failing to establish the best-suited individual(s) to succeed you for both the business and your personal wealth usually leads to material dissipation of each after your death or disability.

T – Tax Minimization – Tax-inefficiency can lead to income and estate tax burdens in excess of 50%; maximize what you keep.

Each area of the planning B.E.A.S.T. is important in its own right, as the failure to properly address any one of the foregoing elements can lead to unexpected loss, if not ruin. This article will serve as the first of five installments in which each component will be reviewed for your benefit.