Why A Handshake Agreement Among Business Partners Is Not Worth The Paper It Is Written On
You go into business with your sister, your father, your college roommate or your best friend. The classic “we-started-in-the-garage” business. You struggle at the beginning – you do whatever you can to minimize overhead. Lawyers are expensive so you decide not to put anything in… Read More
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Business SuccessionStepping Over Dollars to Save Dimes: The Importance of Good Corporate Record-Keeping
Managing expenses is an issue for every business, but it is particularly an issue for small and closely-held businesses. For very rational reasons, exercises that might otherwise seem sensible, but for which there is no clear and quantifiable benefit, are typically put to the side… Read More
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Corporate and SecuritiesDemystifying Discounts
Discounts for lack of marketability and lack of control or minority interest are essential elements of the valuation of stock or other interests in a closely-held business. They are factors which a prospective buyer will consider in determining how much to offer for such an… Read More
Disappearing Discounts
While the federal estate and gift tax used to be assessed at a maximum rate of the confiscatory fifty-five percent (55%) (and for a few years and for very large estates, an astounding sixty-five percent (65%)) it is now at the historically low figure of… Read More