Tag Archives: ownership

Expanding succession planning beyond ownership

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Business owners are regularly urged to create and update their succession plans. And rightfully so — in the event of an ownership change, a solid succession plan can help prevent conflicts and preserve the legacy you’ve spent years or decades building.

But if you want to take your succession plan to the next level, consider expanding its scope beyond ownership. Many companies have key employees, perhaps a CFO or an account executive, who play a critical role in the success of the business.

Your succession plan could include any employee who’s considered indispensable and difficult to replace because of experience, industry or technical knowledge, or other characteristics.

Look to the future

The first step is to identify those you consider essential employees. Whose departure would have the most significant consequence for your business and its strategic plan? Then, when you have a list of names, who might succeed them?

Pinpointing successors calls for more than simply reviewing or updating job descriptions. The right candidates must have the capability to carry out your company’s short- and long-term strategic plans and goals, which their job descriptions might not reflect.

Succession planning should take a forward-looking perspective. The current jobholder’s skills, experience and qualifications are only a starting point. What worked for the last 10 or 20 years might not cut it for the next 10 or 20.

Identify your HiPos

When the time comes, many businesses publicize open positions and invite external candidates to apply. However, it’s easier (and often advantageous) to groom internal candidates before the need arises. To do so, you’ll want to identify your “high potential” (HiPo) employees — those with the ambition, motivation and ability to move up substantially in your organization.

Assess your staff using performance evaluations, discussions about career plans and other tools to determine who can assume greater responsibility now, in a year or in several years. And look beyond the executive or management level; you may discover HiPos in lower-ranking positions.

Develop individual action plans

Once you’ve identified potential internal candidates, develop individual plans for each to follow. Consider your business’s needs, as well as each candidate’s personality and learning style.

An action plan should include multiple components. One example is job shadowing. It will give the candidate a good sense of what is involved in the position under consideration. Other components could include leadership roles on special projects, training, and mentoring and coaching.

Share your vision for the person’s future to ensure common goals. You can update action plans as your company’s and employees’ needs evolve.

Account for the job market

Succession planning beyond ownership is more important than ever in a tight job market. Vacancies for key employees are often difficult to fill — especially for demanding, highly skilled and top-tier positions. We’d be happy to help you review your succession plan and identify which positions may have the greatest financial impact on the continued profitability of your business.

© 2021 Covenant CPA

The ugly side of the precious metals and stones industry

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All that glitters isn’t gold. This includes gold — and other precious metals, stones and jewels that are sometimes used to launder the “dirty” proceeds of criminal activities such as drug trafficking and terrorism. But several U.S. laws and regulations target these international money-laundering operations.

Good as gold

Precious metals, stones and jewels make ideal vehicles for money laundering for several reasons:

Ownership and control. Precious metals are bearer instruments, meaning that like cash, the individual in possession of the precious metal owns and controls it.

Readily transferable. There’s an active, global market that enables criminals to trade them. Because precious metals have many legitimate uses, criminals often can move them without attracting attention.

Relatively stable. Although the price of precious metals fluctuates like those of any commodity, the value of precious metals tends to remain reasonably steady.

Easy to smuggle. Money launderers may use private jets to bypass major airports and cross international lines. Diamonds and other precious stones are small enough to smuggle in someone’s pocket.

Difficult to track. Criminals can manipulate these goods to disguise their source or create a fake document trail to prove their authenticity.  

Defining the dealers

Most precious metals dealers must comply with the U.S. Bank Secrecy Act, which requires that they create and follow an anti-money laundering (AML) program. Certain AML provisions of the U.S. Patriot Act and rules of the Office of Foreign Assets Control also apply to precious metal dealers.

The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) defines a dealer as someone who isn’t a retailer and who both buys and sells covered goods (as described by FinCEN). A dealer must have bought at least $50,000 and sold at least $50,000 of goods in the previous year. Note that there are exceptions. For example, pawnbrokers generally aren’t considered dealers, but in some circumstances they can be. If you’re not sure about your business, talk with an attorney with AML experience.

AML program

But if you do qualify as a dealer, your AML program must have the following:

  • Written policies, procedures and a robust set of internal controls,
  • A designated compliance officer,
  • Training for employees, and
  • Frequent third-party testing.

Other businesses also should be aware of potential criminal activity. For example, if your company is involved in a transaction involving gold coins, be sure to assess the dealer’s compliance efforts.

Contact us for more information, particularly if you aren’t a precious metals dealer but are contemplating a transaction that involves precious metals or stones. 

© 2021 Covenant CPA

Don’t procrastinate if you plan to transfer ownership of your life insurance policy

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Generally, the proceeds of your life insurance policy are included in your taxable estate. You can remove them by transferring ownership of the policy, but there’s a catch: If you wait too long, your intentions may be defeated. Essentially, if ownership of the policy is transferred within three years of your death, the proceeds revert to your taxable estate.

Eliminating “incidents of ownership”

The proceeds of a life insurance policy are subject to federal estate tax if you retain any “incidents of ownership” in the policy. For example, you’re treated as having incidents of ownership if you have the right to:

  • Designate or change the policy’s beneficiary,
  • Borrow against the policy or pledge any cash reserve,
  • Surrender, convert or cancel the policy, or
  • Select a payment option for the beneficiary.

You can eliminate these incidents of ownership by transferring your policy. But first you need to determine who the new owner should be. To choose the best owner, consider why you want the insurance, such as to replace income, to provide liquidity or to transfer wealth to your heirs.

Understanding the ILIT option

An irrevocable life insurance trust (ILIT) can be one of the best ownership alternatives. Typically, if you transfer complete ownership of, and responsibility for, the policy to an ILIT, the policy will ― subject to the three years mentioned above ― be excluded from your estate. You’ll need to designate a trustee to handle the administrative duties. It might be a family member, a friend or a professional. Should you need any additional life insurance protection, it would work best if it were acquired by the ILIT from the outset.

An ILIT can also help you accomplish other estate planning objectives. It might be used to keep assets out of the clutches of creditors or to protect against spending sprees of your relatives. Also keep in mind that, as long as the policy has a named beneficiary, which in the case of an ILIT would be the ILIT itself, the proceeds of the life insurance policy won’t have to pass through probate.

The sooner, the better

If transferring ownership of your life insurance policy is right for you, the sooner you make the transfer, the better. Contact us with any questions regarding life insurance in your estate plan or ILITs.

© 2020 Covenant CPA

Business succession and estate planning: It can be complicated

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Transferring a family business to the next generation requires a delicate balancing act. Estate and succession planning strategies aren’t always compatible, and family members often have conflicting interests. By starting early and planning carefully, however, it’s possible to resolve these conflicts and transfer the business in a tax-efficient manner.

Ownership vs. management succession

One reason transferring a family business is such a challenge is the distinction between ownership and management succession. From an estate planning perspective, transferring assets to the younger generation as early as possible allows you to remove future appreciation from your estate, minimizing estate taxes. However, you may not be ready to hand over the reins of your business or you may feel that your children aren’t yet ready to take over.

There are several ways owners can transfer ownership without immediately giving up control, including:

  • Using a family limited partnership (FLP),
  • Transferring nonvoting stock, or
  • Establishing an employee stock ownership plan.

Another reason to separate ownership and management succession is to deal with family members who aren’t involved in the business. It’s not unusual for a family business owner to have substantially all of his or her wealth tied up in the business.

Providing heirs outside the business with nonvoting stock or other equity interests that don’t confer control can be an effective way to share the wealth with them while allowing those who work in the business to take over management.

Conflicting financial needs

Another challenge presented by family businesses is that the older and younger generations may have conflicting financial needs. Fortunately, strategies are available to generate cash flow for the owner while minimizing the burden on the next generation. They include:

An installment sale. This provides liquidity for the owner while improving the chances that the younger generation’s purchase can be funded by cash flows from the business. Plus, so long as the price and terms are comparable to arm’s-length transactions between unrelated parties, the sale shouldn’t trigger gift or estate taxes.

A grantor retained annuity trust (GRAT). By transferring business interests to a GRAT, the owner obtains a variety of gift and estate tax benefits (provided he or she survives the trust term) while enjoying a fixed income stream for a period of years. At the end of the term, the business is transferred to the owner’s children or other beneficiaries. GRATs are typically designed to be gift-tax-free.

An installment sale to an intentionally defective grantor trust (IDGT). Essentially a properly structured IDGT allows an owner to sell the business on a tax-advantaged basis while enjoying an income stream and retaining control during the trust term. Once the installment payments are complete, the business passes to the owner’s beneficiaries free of gift taxes.

Each family business is different, so it’s important to identify appropriate strategies in light of your objectives and resources. We’d be pleased to help.

© 2020 Covenant CPA