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Konstantakis Law Office helps business owners throughout Milwaukee, Greenfield, Franklin, Waukesha, and surrounding Wisconsin communities create business succession plans that protect their company, family, and future.
It is essential to have a succession plan if you have a business to ensure that your wishes are followed and your values are maintained even after you are not in control of the business. Failure to create a succession plan means you are not properly planning, thus putting your business, and potentially your family, in jeopardy.
Business succession planning is most important for family owned businesses, closely held companies, LLCs, partnerships, and professional practices. Many business owners assume their family members or business partners will “figure things out” when the time comes. Unfortunately, what happens is the opposite often there are many disputes, unnecessary taxes, loss of business value, and even litigation proceedings. Think of a succession plan as the keys and instructions for the next person who has to step into your role. Without the right plan, your loved ones may be left with 15 locked doors and only 3 keys — none of which open the doors they actually need. They may not know who has authority, who owns what, how decisions should be made, or how the business should continue. A properly prepared business succession plan helps make sure the right people have the right keys before a crisis happens.
A business succession plan involves issues of ownership, management, and tax savings to ensure a smooth transition of your business to its future owners after you pass or retire. The plan deals with defining your business goals and financial needs, strategies for the management transition, transfer of ownership, tax planning for the business, and addressing asset protection opportunities and challenges. A succession plan secures the confidence of your customers, lenders, employees, suppliers, and future owners by ensuring long-term growth, continuity, and stability of your business. A business succession plan is considered when creating an estate plan.
Succession plans are essential for family businesses. As the business owner you must determine your future objectives for the continuation of the business. Family and business interests may align or contradict, thus family members should discuss their visions and plans for the business. As part of the planning process, we can review how your business is structured, whether you are in a good standing, if your documents are up to date through a few resources one being Wisconsin business entity filings.
Succession planning is more often tied to an already existing personal estate plan. If you business is one of the more valuable assets wouldn’t you want to make sure to protect it? Your will, trust, powers of attorney, and beneficiary designations all work together to help the business documents so there is no confusion about the goals and wishes that you have aligned for yourself.
We specialize in probate and estate administration. Schedule a consultation with attorney Konstantakis for all of your trust needs!
Business succession planning is tailored to the type of business you own. An LLC, Partnership, and Corporation may each have different rules, documents, ownership rights, voting requirements, and transfer restrictions. For that reason, succession plans play a huge role in these.
Business sucession plans should be built out around the business, family, and your goals. There rearley is a one-size-fits-all plan that works for every business owner. A family-owned LLC, a professional partnership, and a closely held corporation usually all need different documents. The sites that you see that create your plan may seem to be cost effective up front but later on there can be major financial turmoil. Its always a good idea to hire a local financially focused attorney in a lot of these cases.
A business succession plan should explain where the business is now and where you want it to go in the future. The key things you want to keep in mind like how the business is doing, who helps run it, what problems could come up, and what should happen if the owner retires, becomes sick, passes away, or cannot run the business anymore. Often a succession plan is compared to a roadmap. Without a roadmap, the next person may know they are supposed to take over, but they may not know what steps to take.
This plan is used as a way to determine your financial goals and resources. Think of all of your assets and who else it could be tied in with. There are cash flows, taxes, and growth plans in place that everyone should be made aware of.
Often there is a proper ownership and leadership transition. This includes multi-year strategies of who will transition to succeed whom and how things will be managed and proceeded.
There are often 3 potential outcomes that exist:
Without a proper plan all 3 become a variable cost.