Lack of proper business succession planning can leave family-owned and privately held businesses vulnerable to high taxes, ownership disputes, loss of cash flow, default on loans and potentially business failure when the entrepreneur-owner of the firm retires or dies.

1. Your business or assets you worked a lifetime to build up can disintegrate due to lack of proper planning, especially for non-liquid assets, such as privately held business and real estate.
   
   Example:
   
   Husband and wife own 25 to 30 low income real estate properties with a moderate amount of debt and very low tax basis. After the wife dies of cancer the husband stops taking his medicine and stops eating properly. He is used to having his own way and refuses to let his children assist him.
   
   The condition of the properties begins a precipitous decline. Tenants begin to move out or stop paying rent. The City condemns two of the properties. A positive cash flow quickly turns into a cash drain. Some of the better properties are sold, but much of the cash evaporates after payment of debt and taxes on the gain from the sales.
   
   As more properties are put up for sale, the poor quality properties must be renovated and more cash is consumed. In the end, a portfolio originally estimated at more than 20 million dollars is sold for less than 10 million with most of the cash used to pay debts, taxes, renovations and nursing home and medical expenses. Virtually nothing was transferred to the family.
2. Like estate and gift tax planning, succession planning and wealth transfer are strategies that allow you to control what happens to your assets. If you want the family business to stay in the family or you want to sell the business or extract your equity, we can help you plan for that. The key is to step out of the normal day to day actions of operating the business and use the tools that we employ in taking that step.
3. We listen to your goals and then work to implement the most tax-efficient strategy to meet those goals. Our experienced succession planning attorneys can assist with:
   1. Buy-sell agreements
   2. Business valuation issues
   3. Business succession strategies
   4. Exit strategies

As with all of our services, The Robison Law Firm will work alongside our professional partners and represent their clients in succession planning and wealth transfer matters, which may fall outside our professional partners' expertise. To learn more about business succession planning, please contact us today. From offices in Cincinnati, we represent clients throughout Ohio.