As we approach 2025, changes are coming to the Social Security wage base. The Social Security Administration recently announced that the wage base for computing Social Security tax will increase to $176,100 for 2025 (up from $168,600 for 2024). Wages and self-employment income above this amount aren’t subject to Social Security tax.

If your business has employees, you may need to budget for additional payroll costs, especially if you have many high earners.

Social Security basics

The Federal Insurance Contributions Act (FICA) imposes two taxes on employers, employees and self-employed workers. One is for Old Age, Survivors and Disability Insurance, which is commonly known as the Social Security tax, and the other is for Hospital Insurance, which is commonly known as the Medicare tax.

A maximum amount of compensation is subject to the Social Security tax, but there’s no maximum for Medicare tax. For 2025, the FICA tax rate for employers will be 7.65% — 6.2% for Social Security and 1.45% for Medicare (the same as in 2024).

Updates for 2025

For 2025, an employee will pay:

• 6.2% Social Security tax on the first $176,100 of wages (6.2% × $176,100 makes the maximum tax $10,918.20), plus
• 1.45% Medicare tax on the first $200,000 of wages ($250,000 for joint returns, $125,000 for married taxpayers filing separate returns), plus
• 2.35% Medicare tax (regular 1.45% Medicare tax plus 0.9% additional Medicare tax) on all wages in excess of $200,000 ($250,000 for joint returns, $125,000 for married taxpayers filing separate returns).

For 2025, the self-employment tax imposed on self-employed people will be:

• 12.4% Social Security tax on the first $176,100 of self-employment income, for a maximum tax of $21,836.40 (12.4% × $176,100), plus
• 2.90% Medicare tax on the first $200,000 of self-employment income ($250,000 of combined self-employment income on a joint return, $125,000 on a return of a married individual filing separately), plus
• 3.8% (2.90% regular Medicare tax plus 0.9% additional Medicare tax) on all self-employment income in excess of $200,000 ($250,000 of combined self-employment income on a joint return, $125,000 for married taxpayers filing separate returns).

History of the wage base

When the government introduced the Social Security payroll tax in 1937, the wage base was $3,000. It remained that amount through 1950. As the U.S. economy grew and wages began to rise, the wage base needed to be adjusted to ensure that the Social Security system continued to collect sufficient revenue. By 1980, it had risen to $25,900. Twenty years later it had increased to $76,200 and by 2020, it was $137,700. Inflation and wage growth were key factors in these adjustments.

Employees with more than one employer

You may have questions about employees who work for your business and have second jobs. Those employees would have taxes withheld from two different employers. Can the employees ask you to stop withholding Social Security tax once they reach the wage base threshold? The answer is no. Each employer must withhold Social Security taxes from an employee’s wages, even if the combined withholding exceeds the maximum amount that can be imposed for the year. Fortunately, the employees will get a credit on their tax returns for any excess withheld.

Looking ahead

Do you have questions about payroll tax filing or payments now or in 2025? Contact us. We’ll help ensure you stay in compliance.

© 2024

Does your business require real estate for its operations? Or do you hold property titled under your business’s name? It might be worth reconsidering this strategy. With long-term tax, liability and estate planning advantages, separating real estate ownership from the business may be a wise choice.

How taxes affect a sale

Businesses that are formed as C corporations treat real estate assets as they do equipment, inventory and other business assets. Any expenses related to owning the assets appear as ordinary expenses on their income statements and are generally tax deductible in the year they’re incurred.

However, when the business sells the real estate, the profits are taxed twice — at the corporate level and at the owner’s individual level when a distribution is made. Double taxation is avoidable, though. If ownership of the real estate is transferred to a pass-through entity instead, the profit upon sale will be taxed only at the individual level.

Safeguarding assets

Separating your business ownership from its real estate also provides an effective way to protect the real estate from creditors and other claimants. For example, if your business is sued and found liable, a plaintiff may go after all of its assets, including real estate held in its name. But plaintiffs can’t touch property owned by another entity.

The strategy also can pay off if your business is forced to file for bankruptcy. Creditors generally can’t recover real estate owned separately unless it’s been pledged as collateral for credit taken out by the business.

Estate planning implications

Separating real estate from a business may give you some estate planning options, too. For example, if the company is a family business but all members of the next generation aren’t interested in actively participating, separating property gives you an extra asset to distribute. You could bequest the business to one member and the real estate to another.

Handling the transaction

If you’re interested in this strategy, the business can transfer ownership of the real estate and then the transferee can lease it back to the company. Who should own the real estate? One option: The business owner can purchase the real estate from the business and hold title in his or her name. One concern though, is that it’s not only the property that’ll transfer to the owner but also any liabilities related to it.

In addition, any liability related to the property itself may inadvertently put the business at risk. If, for example, a client suffers an injury on the property and a lawsuit ensues, the property owner’s other assets (including the interest in the business) could be in jeopardy.

An alternative is to transfer the property to a separate legal entity formed to hold the title, typically a limited liability company (LLC) or limited liability partnership (LLP). With a pass-through structure, any expenses related to the real estate will flow through to your individual tax return and offset the rental income.

An LLC is more commonly used to transfer real estate. It’s simple to set up and requires only one member. LLPs require at least two partners and aren’t permitted in every state. Some states restrict them to certain types of businesses and impose other restrictions.

Tread carefully

It isn’t always advisable to separate the ownership of a business from its real estate. If it’s a valuable move, the right approach will depend on your individual circumstances. Contact us to help determine the best way to minimize your transfer costs and capital gains taxes while maximizing other potential benefits.

Properly prepared financial statements provide a wealth of information about your company. But the operative words there are “properly prepared.” Classifying information accurately isn’t always easy — especially as the business grows and its financial transactions become more complex.

Case in point: your statement of cash flows. Customarily, it shows the sources (money entering) and uses (money exiting) of cash. That may sound simple enough, but optimally classifying different cash flows can be complicated.

Under U.S. Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP), statements of cash flows are typically organized into three sections: 1) cash flows from operating activities, 2) cash flows from investing activities, and 3) cash flows from financing activities. Let’s take a closer look at each.

Operating activities

This section of the statement of cash flows usually starts with accrual-basis net income. Then, it’s adjusted for items related to normal business operations. Examples include income taxes; stock-based compensation; gains or losses on asset sales; and net changes in accounts receivable, inventory, prepaid assets, accrued expenses and payables.

The cash flows from operating activities section is also adjusted for depreciation and amortization. These noncash expenses reflect wear and tear on equipment and other fixed assets.

The bottom of the section shows the cash used in producing and delivering goods or providing services. Several successive years of negative operating cash flows can signal that a business is struggling and may be headed toward liquidation or a forced sale.

Investing activities

If your company buys or sells property, equipment or marketable securities, such transactions should show up in the cash flows from investing activities section. It reveals whether a business is reinvesting in its future operations — or divesting assets for emergency funds.

Business acquisitions and disposals are generally reported in this section, too. However, contingent payments from an acquisition are classified as cash flows from investing activities only if they’re paid soon after the acquisition date. Later contingent payments are classified as financing outflows. Any payment over the liability is classified as an operations outflow.

Financing activities

This third section of the statement of cash flows shows your company’s ability to obtain funds from either debt from lenders or equity from investors. It includes new loan proceeds, principal repayments, dividends paid, issuances of securities or bonds, additional capital contributions by owners, and stock repurchases.

Noncash transactions are reported in a separate schedule at the bottom of the statement of cash flows or in a narrative footnote disclosure. For example, suppose a business buys equipment using loan proceeds. In such a case, the transaction would typically appear at the bottom of the statement rather than as a cash outflow from investing activities and an inflow from financing activities.

Other examples of noncash financing transactions are:

• Issuing stock to pay off long-term debt, and
• Converting preferred stock to common stock.

In those two instances and others, no cash changes hands. Nonetheless, financial statement users, such as investors and lenders, want to know about and understand these transactions.

Help is available

As you can see, deciding how to classify some transactions to comply with GAAP can be tricky. Whenever confusion or uncertainty arises, give us a call. We can work with you and your accounting team to make the best decision. We can also help you improve your financial reporting in other ways.

© 2024

A strong brand can help boost revenue, while a weaker one may reduce sales opportunities and stifle growth.

Like many business owners, you’ve probably spent considerable time and energy crafting your company’s brand. Doing so has likely involved coming up with a memorable business name and logo, communicating with customers in a distinctive manner, and, above all, building a strong reputation in your market.

So, how’s all that going? Although your bottom line can certainly tell you a thing or two about the current success of your business, brand strength can be a little trickier to put a finger on. That’s why many companies conduct brand audits — essentially, formal reviews of a brand’s efficacy and market standing.

Data to gather

There are many ways to conduct a brand audit. The optimal steps for your business will depend on factors such as your industry, your company size and the popularity of your brand.

But most audits have certain things in common. For starters, they generally rely on information you already have on hand or could easily generate. Examples include:

Sales data. One objective of a brand audit is to identify sales-related key performance indicators and trends that may relate to branding. Essentially, if sales have slumped, is your brand partly to blame? And if so, why?

Website analytics. Brand audits usually investigate whether site traffic is trending upward or downward. They also typically determine how much time visitors spend on your site and on which pages. A strong brand will draw consistent visitors who tend to stick around. A weaker one is often indicated by a large number of accidental visitors who leave quickly.

Social media interactions. Although social media has its challenges and downsides, one enormous benefit is that each of your accounts should provide a wealth of interaction data. Brand audits can analyze this information over time to assess brand strength — and determine whether it’s rising or falling.

Customers and employees

Most brand audits also involve gathering the thoughts and opinions of two major constituencies: customers and employees.

Customers, of course, represent the richest source of insight into brand strength. Brand audits can involve surveys that posit various questions to customers and prospects about your brand. But such a survey needs to be carefully designed. You’ve got to keep it short, clear and easy to complete. Most are now conducted online.

Employees can also tell you things about your brand that you might not know or haven’t thought about. Your sales staff, for instance, could be getting feedback — positive or negative — from customers and prospects. So, an employee survey focused on brand-related issues can be a useful part of an audit.

More than marketing

Generally, brand audits are conducted for marketing purposes. They can help your marketing department determine how to enhance your brand — or potentially even whether you need to undertake a full-blown rebrand. But regular brand audits can also benefit strategic planning. You may even discover that someone has been using your brand fraudulently!

Precisely who should conduct a brand audit typically depends on business size. Larger companies with sizable internal marketing teams may be able to do it themselves. But many small to midsize businesses turn to marketing consultants or agencies to do the job. Our firm can help you assess the costs of a brand audit, as well as gather and analyze some of the financial data involved.

© 2024

With Labor Day in the rearview mirror, it’s time to take proactive steps that may help lower your small business’s taxes for this year and next. The strategy of deferring income and accelerating deductions to minimize taxes can be effective for most businesses, as is the approach of bunching deductible expenses into this year or next to maximize their tax value.

Do you expect to be in a higher tax bracket next year? If so, then opposite strategies may produce better results. For example, you could pull income into 2024 to be taxed at lower rates, and defer deductible expenses until 2025, when they can be claimed to offset higher-taxed income.

Here are some other ideas that may help you save tax dollars if you act soon.

Estimated taxes

Make sure you make the last two estimated tax payments to avoid penalties. The third quarter payment for 2024 is due on September 16, 2024, and the fourth quarter payment is due on January 15, 2025.

QBI deduction

Taxpayers other than corporations may be entitled to a deduction of up to 20% of their qualified business income (QBI). For 2024, if taxable income exceeds $383,900 for married couples filing jointly (half that amount for other taxpayers), the deduction may be limited based on whether the taxpayer is engaged in a service-type business (such as law, health or consulting), the amount of W-2 wages paid by the business, and/or the unadjusted basis of qualified property (such as machinery and equipment) held by the business. The limitations are phased in.

Taxpayers may be able to salvage some or all of the QBI deduction (or be subject to a smaller deduction phaseout) by deferring income or accelerating deductions to keep income under the dollar thresholds. You also may be able increase the deduction by increasing W-2 wages before year end. The rules are complex, so consult us before acting.

Cash vs. accrual accounting

More small businesses are able to use the cash (rather than the accrual) method of accounting for federal tax purposes than were allowed to do so in previous years. To qualify as a small business under current law, a taxpayer must (among other requirements) satisfy a gross receipts test. For 2024, it’s satisfied if, during the three prior tax years, average annual gross receipts don’t exceed $30 million. Cash method taxpayers may find it easier to defer income by holding off on billing until next year, paying bills early or making certain prepayments.

Section 179 deduction

Consider making expenditures that qualify for the Section 179 expensing option. For 2024, the expensing limit is $1.22 million, and the investment ceiling limit is $3.05 million. Expensing is generally available for most depreciable property (other than buildings) including equipment, off-the-shelf computer software, interior improvements to a building, HVAC and security systems.

The high dollar ceilings mean that many small and midsize businesses will be able to currently deduct most or all of their outlays for machinery and equipment. What’s more, the deduction isn’t prorated for the time an asset is in service during the year. Even if you place eligible property in service by the last days of 2024, you can claim a full deduction for the year.

Bonus depreciation

For 2024, businesses also can generally claim a 60% bonus first-year depreciation deduction for qualified improvement property and machinery and equipment bought new or used, if purchased and placed in service this year. As with the Sec. 179 deduction, the write-off is available even if qualifying assets are only in service for a few days in 2024.

Upcoming tax law changes

These are just some year-end strategies that may help you save taxes. Contact us to customize a plan that works for you. In addition, it’s important to stay informed about any changes that could affect your business’s taxes. In the next couple years, tax laws will be changing. Many tax breaks, including the QBI deduction, are scheduled to expire at the end of 2025. Plus, the outcome of the presidential and congressional elections could result in new or repealed tax breaks.

© 2024

Every business needs a budget, but not every budget looks the same. Some companies have intricately detailed ones, others rely on simple templates generated with off-the shelf software, and still others forego formal budgets in favor of a “fly by the seat of your pants” approach. (That last option isn’t recommended.)

Because budgeting is such an essential part of running a business, it’s easy to take for granted. You may fall into a routine that, over time, doesn’t keep up with your company’s evolving needs. To identify areas of improvement, here are six key elements of a business budget and some best practices to consider:

1. Current overview. You may think you’ve created a sound budget, but its usefulness will be limited if it’s based on what your business looked like and how it operated five years ago. Compose an up-to-date description of your business. This should include its strategic goals, sales targets, the state of your industry and market, and impactful economic factors.

2. Budget rationale. Explain in clear language how the budget supports your company’s mission, vision, values, goals and objectives. To be included in the budget, every line item (see below) must support all five of those factors. If one doesn’t, question its merit.

3. Detailed line items. Naturally, the “meat” of every budget is its line items. These typically include:

• Revenue, such as sales income and interest income,
• Expenses, such as salaries and wages, rent, and utilities,
• Capital expenditures, such as equipment purchases and property improvements, and
• Contingency funds, such as a cash reserve.

An important question to ask is: Are we including everything the business spends money on? Although maintaining a detailed budget can be tedious, it’s imperative to managing cash flow.

4. Selected performance metrics. Among the primary purposes of a budget is to compare projected spending to actual spending — making adjustments as necessary. As part of the budgeting process, establish precisely which metrics you’ll use to determine whether you’re making, breaking or beating the budget.

5. Supporting appendices. Discuss with your leadership team whether your budget would be more useful with additional information. Commonly attached supporting appendices include historical budget and results analyses, department spending summaries, tables and graphs depicting market and cost trends, organizational charts, and glossaries of terminology.

6. Executive summary. This brief written snapshot, which usually appears at the very top of the budget report, is intended to provide a concise overview of the chief objectives and major sections of the budget. If you’re not already using one, consider it. For you and other internal users, an executive summary can serve as a quick reference and help you set your expectations. Perhaps more important, it can make your budget easier to understand for outside parties such as lenders and investors.

Your current budget may not include all six of these elements — and that’s OK. As mentioned, companies are free to create budgets in whatever format suits their size and needs. But you should approach budgeting with an eye on continuous improvement. And to that end, please contact us. We can assess your budgeting process from start to finish and suggest ways to perform this critical business function more efficiently and effectively.

© 2024

If you’re selling property used in your trade or business, you should understand the tax implications. There are many complex rules that can potentially apply. To simplify this discussion, let’s assume that the property you want to sell is land or depreciable property used in your business, and has been held by you for more than a year.

Note: There are different rules for property held primarily for sale to customers in the ordinary course of business, intellectual property, low-income housing, property that involves farming or livestock, and other types of property.

Basic rules

Under tax law, your gains and losses from sales of business property are netted against each other. The tax treatment is as follows:

1. If the netting of gains and losses results in a net gain, then long-term capital gain treatment results, subject to “recapture” rules discussed below. Long-term capital gain treatment is generally more favorable than ordinary income treatment.

2. If the netting of gains and losses results in a net loss, that loss is fully deductible against ordinary income. (In other words, none of the rules that limit the deductibility of capital losses apply.)

The availability of long-term capital gain treatment for business property net gain is limited by “recapture” rules. Under these rules, amounts are treated as ordinary income, rather than capital gain, because of previous ordinary loss or deduction treatment.

There’s a special recapture rule that applies only to business property. Under this rule, to the extent you’ve had a business property net loss within the previous five years, any business property net gain is treated as ordinary income instead of long-term capital gain.

Different types of property

Under the Internal Revenue Code, different provisions address different types of property. For example:

• Section 1245 property. This consists of all depreciable personal property, whether tangible or intangible, and certain depreciable real property (usually real property that performs specific functions). If you sell Section 1245 property, you must recapture your gain as ordinary income to the extent of your earlier depreciation deductions on the asset.
• Section 1250 property. In general, this consists of buildings and their structural components. If you sell Section 1250 property that’s placed in service after 1986, none of the long-term capital gain attributable to depreciation deductions will be subject to depreciation recapture. However, for most noncorporate taxpayers, the gain attributable to depreciation deductions, to the extent it doesn’t exceed business property net gain, will (as reduced by the business property recapture rule above) be taxed at a rate of no more than 28.8% (25% plus the 3.8% net investment income tax) rather than the maximum 23.8% rate (20% plus the 3.8% net investment income tax) that generally applies to long-term capital gains of noncorporate taxpayers.

Other rules apply to, respectively, Section 1250 property that you placed in service before 1987 but after 1980 and Section 1250 property that you placed in service before 1981.

As you can see, even with the simple assumptions in this article, the tax treatment of the sale of business assets can be complex. Contact us if you’d like to determine the tax implications of transactions, or if you have any additional questions.

© 2024

Fraud is a pernicious problem for companies of all shapes and sizes. One broad type of crime that seems to be thriving as of late is invoice fraud.

In the second quarter of 2024, accounts payable software provider Medius released the results of a survey of 1,533 senior finance executives in the United States and United Kingdom. Respondents reported that their teams had seen, on average, 13 cases of attempted invoice fraud and nine cases of successful invoice fraud in the preceding 12 months. The average per-incident loss in the United States was $133,000 — which adds up to about $1.2 million annually.

Typical schemes

Invoice fraud can be perpetrated in various ways. Among the most common varieties is fraudulent billing. In billing schemes, a real or fake vendor sends an invoice for goods or services that the business never received — and may not have ordered in the first place.

Overbilling schemes are similar. Your company may have received goods it ordered, but the vendor’s invoice is higher than agreed upon. Duplicate billing, on the other hand, is where a fraud perpetrator sends you the same invoice more than once, even though you’ve already paid.

Employees sometimes commit invoice fraud as well. This can happen when a manager approves payments for personal purchases. In other cases, a manager might create fictitious vendors, issue invoices from the fake vendors and approve the invoices for payment.

Such schemes generally are more successful when employees collude. For example, one perpetrator might work in receiving and the other in accounts payable. Or a receiving worker might collude with a vendor or other outside party.

Best practices

The good news is there are some best practices that businesses can follow to discourage would-be perpetrators and catch those who try to commit invoice fraud. These include:

Know with whom you’re doing business. Verify the identity of any new supplier or vendor before working with that entity. Research its ownership, operating history, registered address and customer reviews. Also, ask for references so you can contact other companies that can vouch for its legitimacy.

Follow a thorough approval process. Establish a firm “no rubber stamp” policy for invoices. Train accounts payable staff to review them for red flags, such as unexpected changes in the amounts due or unusual payment terms. Manual alterations to an invoice should require additional scrutiny, as should the first several invoices from new vendors.

Instruct employees to contact an issuing vendor if anything seems strange or inaccurate about its invoice. In cases where the response lacks credibility or raises additional concerns, your business should decline to pay until the matter is resolved.

Implement additional antifraud controls as well. For instance, before approving payment, accounts payable staff should confirm with your receiving department that goods were delivered and check invoices against previous ones from the same vendor to ensure there are no discrepancies. Also, you may want to require more than one person to approve certain invoices for payment — such as those at or above a specified amount.

Leverage technology. Automating your accounts payable process can help prevent and detect invoice fraud. And, as you might expect, artificial intelligence (AI) is having an impact here.

One AI-driven technology called optical character recognition (OCR) can scan and read invoices to verify that line items and charged amounts match those vendors quoted you per your company’s financial records. OCR minimizes employee intervention, hinders collusion and makes diverting payments to personal accounts harder.

Decisive action

As the aforementioned survey indicates, invoice fraud is likely widespread. Be sure to put policies and procedures in place to prevent it as well as to respond swiftly and decisively if you suspect wrongdoing. Our firm can help you assess your accounts payable processes for efficiency, completeness and security.

© 2024

Here are some of the key tax-related deadlines affecting businesses and other employers during the fourth quarter of 2024. Keep in mind that this list isn’t all-inclusive, so there may be additional deadlines that apply to you. Contact us to ensure you’re meeting all applicable deadlines and to learn more about the filing requirements.

Note: Certain tax-filing and tax-payment deadlines may be postponed for taxpayers who reside in or have a business in a federally declared disaster area.

Tuesday, October 1

• The last day you can initially set up a SIMPLE IRA plan, provided you (or any predecessor employer) didn’t previously maintain a SIMPLE IRA plan. If you’re a new employer that comes into existence after October 1 of the year, you can establish a SIMPLE IRA plan as soon as administratively feasible after your business comes into existence.

Tuesday, October 15

• If a calendar-year C corporation that filed an automatic six-month extension:
• File a 2023 income tax return (Form 1120) and pay any tax, interest and penalties due.
• Make contributions for 2023 to certain employer-sponsored retirement plans.

Thursday, October 31

• Report income tax withholding and FICA taxes for third quarter 2024 (Form 941) and pay any tax due. (See exception below under “November 12.”)

Tuesday, November 12

• Report income tax withholding and FICA taxes for third quarter 2024 (Form 941), if you deposited on time (and in full) all the associated taxes due.

Monday, December 16

• If a calendar-year C corporation, pay the fourth installment of 2024 estimated income taxes.

Contact us if you’d like more information about the filing requirements and to ensure you’re meeting all applicable deadlines.

© 2024

For many business owners, choosing a successor is the most difficult task related to succession planning. Owners of family-owned businesses, who may have multiple children or other relatives to consider, particularly tend to struggle with this tough choice.

What’s worse, many business owners’ initial picks for successor don’t work out. Over time, the chosen person can prove to be unqualified, incapable or unwilling to fulfill a leadership role. If you find yourself in this situation, don’t panic. There are some measured steps you can take to resolve the matter.

Ask around

Before you dismiss your chosen successor, discuss the situation with several objective parties. These might include professional advisors, such as your CPA and attorney, as well as trusted family members, friends or colleagues with business experience.

Your goal is to determine whether your perception is off the mark. You may think, for instance, that your successor lacks the necessary skills to run your company. But the person might simply have a different leadership style than you do. Talking with others may help you put things in perspective.

Look for ways to help

If you come to believe that, with some work, your successor may still be capable of running the business after all, meet with the person. State your concerns and outline what must change.

And don’t forget to listen. Ask why your successor is having the difficulties you’ve pointed out. Perhaps it’s a lack of formal training in one aspect of the job. In such cases, there may be a class that can help provide the needed education, or maybe more mentoring from you might solve the problem.

It’s also possible your successor is facing personal issues that are getting in the way of work. For example, the person may be having financial problems, battling an addiction, or struggling in a marriage or other personal relationship. By listening, you can find out what the specific issues are and how you may be able to help.

Avoid past mistakes

After talking with others, and perhaps your successor, you may still feel the person needs to be replaced. If you decide to move on to someone else, tell your successor as soon as possible and explain why. Being honest and forthright, though difficult, will help settle the matter efficiently. As part of the conversation, ask whether there’s anything you could’ve done differently to avoid the impasse that developed.

Following that discussion, reconstruct the succession planning process to determine what led you to choose your initial successor. Review personal notes, memos and emails. Speak again with your professional advisors as well as trusted employees, family members, friends and colleagues about picking someone new. Ultimately, you want to develop objective criteria for your new successor and eliminate the impediments that kept your initial choice from working out.

Finally, if your second choice also doesn’t work out, stay open to the possibility that the problem may not lie with your prospective successors. It’s possible that the demands you’re placing on a successor may be somewhat unreasonable, or that you’re inadequately communicating your wishes and expectations.

Prepare for contingencies

Many business owners choose successors, work diligently to mentor them and transition smoothly into retirement with their companies in safe hands. But, as you well know, rarely does everything go exactly as planned in the business world. Preparing for contingencies is key in succession planning. As part of that effort, we can help you integrate savvy tax and financial strategies into your plan.

© 2024