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IN BRIEF
Any family business, however successful, will reach a day when ownership must change hands. A plan of succession for ownership of business interests ensures that the business will continue to operate with a minimum of disruption and can also provide tax benefits to the owner and the successor. The authors detail the various options available to business owners looking to establish succession plans, noting where CPAs can leverage their position as trusted advisors to assist clients with establishing such plans.
Family businesses account for over 50% of U.S. GDP, and 35% of Fortune 500 companies are controlled by families. These companies are vital to the economy, offering stability, a long-term commitment, and responsibility to their communities and employees. Although family-owned businesses are responsible for 60% of jobs in America, a recent family business survey done by the National Bureau of Economic Research's Family Business Alliance indicates that despite succession being a critical issue for many family companies, only 15% of them have anything resembling a succession plan in place. Furthermore, businesses have a difficult time surviving through multiple generations; just making it to the second generation is a milestone event; only 30% make it through the second generation, and just 12% make it through the third ("The Family Business Sector in 2016: Success and Succession," PricewaterhouseCoopers, https://pwc.to/2D3ftcF).
This article explains how CPAs, as trusted advisors, can play a significant role in establishing prudent and functional succession plans for their business owner clients.
What Is Succession Planning?
Succession planning is the process of developing a written plan for an occasion when an owner decides, or is forced, to step down from an ownership and leadership role in the business. This event can be voluntary, such as retirement, or involuntary, such as death or incapacitation. Closely held family businesses do not have the same depth of management that large corporations enjoy. Good succession planning in these cases involves both determining who will own shares of the corporation and who will take on the leadership roles. Who does the owner want to have an ownership stake in the company, and how will that ownership ultimately change hands? All business owners will exit their businesses at some point, either by design or by default, and a succession...