If you start a new company, it is important for you to consult with a business planner as soon as possible to help you organize your business, select the correct type of business entity and assist you in making the choices necessary to build a successful business. A knowledgeable attorney with business planning experience can help you do many things, including making certain your company is set up to limit your liability.
Among the tasks a business planner will help you with is helping you develop a business succession plan. A business succession plan is essential so your company can continue to operate and provide valuable products and services long after you are gone. With the right planning, your business can be your legacy, can be continued by future generations, and can be a lasting testament to your success.
Parman & Easterday has extensive experience with business planning, including addressing business succession issues. Our legal team works hard to ensure the company you are building can outlast you and can be passed on to new owners without problems or loss of value. Give us a call to talk with an Oklahoma City business planner to find out about the many ways an experienced attorney can help with the business planning and business succession process.
How Can a Business Planner Help With Business Succession Issues?
A business planning attorney should be consulted to help you address your business succession issues. You need to begin thinking about how to pass on your company as soon as the company is formed, as your succession plan can affect the type of business entity selected. For example, if your company is incorporated and you own stock in the business, it is much easier to transfer those shares of stock than to transfer an interest in a sole proprietorship.
If you own a business with co-owners, you also need to consider how each individual co-owner’s succession plan will impact the future of the company. For example, you may wish to create a buy/sell agreement which sets forth how business interests are to be valued if someone must leave, and gives other co-owners the first opportunity to buy the shares of the departing owner. A buy/sell agreement can help prevent a company from falling into the wrong hands.
Choosing an entity and selecting the right types of legal documents is a very small part of business succession planning. You should talk with an experienced attorney about the specific steps you need to take to make certain ownership interests in your company can be quickly transferred to the new owners when someone leaves the organization.
Why Is It So Important To Get Legal Help With Business Succession Issues?
A business planner should be consulted for help with business succession issues because a number of problems can result if you do not have a good plan in place for the transfer of your business.
If you have not made the right advanced plans for your company, your business could fall into the wrong hands if someone passes away, divorces, or leaves the business. Without a plan, a delay in the transfer of your company could also create a period of uncertainty that undermines operations and potentially even destroys the company brand or the value of the business entity.
You also need to consider your succession planning when creating a comprehensive estate plan. If you do not address the transfer of your business, the value of your ownership in the company could result in your estate becoming subject to estate tax. While there are exemptions before estate tax is assessed on an estate, many people’s estates are pushed over the exemption limits because of the value of a business interest.
This can create big problems as the bulk of the wealth may be tied up in the company and there may not be sufficient cash and liquid assets available to cover the costs of the estate tax. There have been many instances in which business assets have had to be sold, loans taken out, or even companies themselves sold because of insufficient funds to pay the estate tax after someone died without proper business succession planning.
Getting Help From An Oklahoma City Business Planner
A business planner can provide you with comprehensive assistance with your business planning and business succession needs. Our legal team can discuss your goals for your business and help you use the right legal tools to make certain your business can transfer quickly and seamlessly to new owners so its operations can continue without you.
To find out more about business succession and the business planning process, join us for a free seminar. For personalized advice with your business planning, give us a call today at (405) 843-6100 or (913) 703-9987 or contact us online today to talk with an experienced attorney who can help you.
Since founding Parman & Easterday in 1985, Larry has led over 1,000 free, community-service education programs and helped more than 10,000 Oklahoma families go from putting off their estate plan to getting it done. His goal for every client is the same: to become the person their family calls "the one who took care of everything."
Larry is the author of three books: The Straight Shooter's Guide to Estate Planning; Estate Planning Basics; and Guiding Those Left Behind in Oklahoma. He served as Oklahoma's Secretary of State and Secretary of Commerce, and his firm is the only member of the American Academy of Estate Planning Attorneys in the state.
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