Malone Law provides a holistic and integrated service uniquely designed to help business owners and real estate investors proactively tax plan, protect their assets and achieve generational wealth. Starting, implementing, and maintaining your business requires dedication from you and those guiding you. Malone Law believes that successful tax and asset protection planning strategies involve ongoing communication with various professionals. We pride ourselves on building a relationship with you and serving as your communication hub to prepare protective business plans and strategies.
Tax & Asset Protection Planning
Tax law is everchanging and requires a constantly evolving plan to ensure you are neither overpaying nor underpaying your business taxes. When you initially structure your business, we will help you do so with your tax obligations in mind. Rather than being merely reactive, we believe in high impact, forward thinking and proactive tax strategies. By leveraging the tax code, our mission is to optimize the profits of your business ventures by providing tax reduction and wealth transfer strategies.
When your position changes as your business grows, we will work with you to restructure your entity to protect your hard-earned wealth. Competent asset safeguarding approaches will help shield assets from the ongoing risks of running a business. Owning and operating a business is often layered with stress. That's not to say there isn't significant opportunity and reward along the way. Still, even when all is running smoothly, most high-earning business owners and real estate investors will lose sleep over what could be waiting around the next proverbial corner. Business owners operating in high risk and high reward environments should utilize every tool to mitigate business risks.
Malone Law offers more than just practical startup guidance. We also work to ensure that you are managing your ongoing business operations while continuously prioritizing tax, asset protection and other planning strategies to meet your unique goals. We are in it for the long-haul because you are too.
Business Entity Structuring & Succession Planning
The formation and organization of your business can offer a considerable amount of liability protection. Limited liability companies and corporations alike offer a certain amount of protection from claims against your personal assets. In these scenarios, it's important that you've maintained your personal assets and your business assets separately.
Business owners need to consider their succession plan long before they intend to step away from their businesses' roles. Maybe your goal has always been to sell your business, or perhaps you know you want to transfer your business to family in the distant future—either way, a succession plan will serve to ensure an effective change in ownership. In preparing your succession plan, you need to consider whether you would like to gradually step away while still maintaining some control over the operations or prefer to transfer ownership entirely at a definite point in time. You also need to account for unfortunate life events.
Other considerations for preparing an effective succession plan include preparing a roadmap for implementing the plan along with tax management strategies for the transfer. While succession planning is easy to put off, preparing now can help business owners avoid bitter litigation that jeopardizes the hard work they have put into building a successful venture.
Succession plans should be tailored to each business, and Malone Law understands the need for a uniquely designed succession strategy that suits your intended needs and evolves with your ongoing wishes.
Legacy Planning
Most business owners and real estate investors require more than the basic will or generic estate plan. Although common for individuals with relatively few assets, the actual administration of a Last Will & Testament can be contrary to your intentions and a burden to your heirs. If your assets are devised via your will, your heirs must endure the delay and associated expenses of probating the the will. Since this must be done through a Court proceeding, the docket is public record.
The trust is a widely popular tool for high net worth individuals who wish to avoid the probate process in distributing assets to their heirs after their passing. When these assets are held in trust, the trust agreement dictates how your ownership interests will pass. The transfer of ownership to your heirs is triggered upon your death, vesting them with real estate or other interests in accordance with your last wishes.
The trust can also be a powerful mechanism in Tax & Asset Protection Planning. A trust is a legal tool that allows a third party, known as a trustee, to hold legal title to business assets. Although transferring ownership of your assets to someone other than yourself may seem counterintuitive, it's important to understand that the trustee must act in accordance with the terms written out in the trust agreement. It's imperative that you speak with an experienced attorney when you create your trust because an ineffective trust agreement can lead to serious complications.
There are various trust types, and Malone Law can help you determine which trust is best for you and your assets. The type of trust that will work best for you depends on your current assets and your specific long-term goals. It is natural to experience hesitation when committing to long-term strategies in your business's startup phase, especially because you know your assets will change over time. Generally, trust agreements can be prepared to account for these changes or, if the changes are significant, the trust agreement can be amended. When you have an ongoing relationship with an advisor who knows the ins and outs of your operations, you will be advised of when the appropriate time to amend a trust may be.
