Many closely-held business owners devote the majority of their lives to developing a successful business.
Therefore, as part of their estate planning strategy, small business owners want to ensure that the worth of their business is properly valued, especially if the business must be sold in order to pay estate taxes. If drafted properly, a buy-sell agreement is an effective tool that can be used to set the value of a closely-held business interest.
Read more from Deanna Alger, CPA
With the Supreme Court ruling same-sex marriage is a right for all married same-sex couples should know the tax benefits they will receive beginning this year.
read more…Posted by: Robert O’Neil, CPA
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By the Tax Services Department
You’ve finally made the decision to become one of “those people.” 
You know, the person who, as was drawing closer to retirement (and coincidently, during one of the never-ending sub-zero days of winter), decided that living somewhere south of the Mason-Dixon line just made sense. You meticulously planned to move south to retire. But, before you settle back in the lounge chair twirling the paper umbrella as it shades your Pina Colada, you may want to ensure you have all of your assets in order.
By Tax Services Department
I once had a wealthy client who was a private business owner that wanted to gift a vacation home to his children. Based on prior gifting, to transfer the property outright, he would have incurred a 40% gift tax rate on a portion of the value of the home because the fair market value was in excess of their remaining gift tax exemption. 
As his advisor, we had discussed his long-term financial goals and created an Ohio limited liability company so the vacation home could be deeded into the LLC. Since the home was now an LLC asset, he had a qualified professional perform a valuation of the LLC.
Assigning several “discounts” for the value of the LLC , when he transferred the LLC ownership to the children, he was able to reduce the fair market value of the vacation home by using a 30% discount per the valuation. This simple planning allowed him to transfer the vacation home to his children without incurring any gift tax.
Needless to say, valuation discounts are a very important and significant component of estate planning. The two main discounts are lack of control and lack of marketability.
Lack of Control
Typically, when ownership of a family business is gifted to family members of a lower generation, the control stays with the older generation by the use of voting and non-voting stock. While the IRS originally maintained that valuation discounts for minority interests (lack of control) were not available, the IRS changed its position in 1993, in Revenue Ruling 93-12.
Lack of Marketability
In addition, a discount for a lack of marketability has been allowed because the Family Limited Partnership (FLP) units are not sold in the stock or other open market and are not easily valued. The lack of marketability discount is available because of the difficulty of selling “hard to value” assets. This opened the door for FLPs and family limited liability companies (FLLCs) to become very useful estate planning tools.
The IRS recently announced 2014 inflation adjustments for several key tax provisions including the following:
read more…Due to the late changes in the Federal Gift and Estate Tax law included in the 2010 Tax Relief Act passed on December 17, 2010, IRS Form 709 underwent significant revisions to incorporate those changes.
It appears that we may be one step closer to repeal of the Ohio Estate tax. On May 5, the Ohio House of Representative approved H.B. 153. Within this bill, was the inclusion of language eliminating Ohio’s estate tax, effective January 1, 2013.
read more…Early in June, we posted a blog entry indicating how Ohio was moving closer to an Estate Tax Repeal. With the signing of the biennial budget by Governor Kasich last Thursday, June 30, 2011, repeal is now official! The Ohio Estate Tax has been eliminated effective January 1, 2013.
Previously, Ohio held the dubious distinction of having the lowest state estate tax exemption amount in the country, at $338,333. That distinction will soon belong to New Jersey, with an estate exemption amount of $675,000.
We don’t know exactly how local governments will react to this change. It is projected that, over the long term, additional revenue to the state will be generated as a result of Ohioans not relocating to other states to avoid the estate tax. This, in turn, will have the effect of feeding the Ohio economy and job market, making up for the lost estate tax revenue.
Keep in mind though, that deaths occurring in 2011 and 2012 will still be subject to Ohio Estate tax at a potential rate of as much as 7%.
Needless to say, you should contact us or your estate attorney to determine how this change may affect your current estate plan.
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