In our last post, we spoke about a proposed merger between office supply chains Office Depot and Staples. As we noted, Office Depot shareholders recently voted to go forward with the acquisition, but the Federal Trade Commission still has to review the agreement and make a decision, which will determine whether or not the process can move forward.

It's an understatement to say that the role of the trustee is fraught with pitfalls. Often times, a settlor creates a trust to suit his or her needs, but rarely does the settlor take into consideration, the difficulties the trustee will face when administering the trust. The discretion given to the trustee can provide a gateway for added liability, and the creation of a trust should take the twin concerns of trustee discretion and trustee liability into as much consideration as the disposition of the trust assets.

When a business owner is working on selling his or her business, there is a lot of planning that goes into the process. One important aspect of selling a business is to work out a tax strategy. In any business sale, potential buyers are going to want to know about  the tax liabilities the company is carrying before they purchase the business.

Most business owners, if you ask them, probably have a basic idea of what succession planning is all about: deciding how ownership interests will be passed when they or their partners or co-owners leave the company. The problem for many business owners is taking the initiative to get an appropriate succession plan in place. Once the inertia to doing so is overcome, though, getting an effective plan in place doesn’t have to be that hard.  

The organization of any business as a limited liability company ("LLC") brings with it attendant protections for the members from the liabilities that arise in the course of the business as well as beneficial tax treatment. This protection is not a two-way street, however: the member's financial interest in the LLC does not receive complete protection from the member's personal liabilities. Judgment creditors of LLC members have at their disposal a unique remedy to collect distributions and more from the judgment debtor's membership or partnership interests; that remedy is the charging order.

Gift tax is not something many people think about, and for good reason: it will not affect the majority of taxpayers in any appreciable way. However, it can make a significant difference to wealthy givers who make large gifts in an effort to pare down an estate, and while the exemption is high, it is not limitless. As with most things, it is better to understand the rules and not need to use them than to wind up affected by them when you did not understand them.

In our last post, we wrote about a trademark infringement case out in California involving a small business owner who is up against a large corporation in protecting a marketing slogan she trademarked. In such David vs. Goliath cases, it is important to work with an experienced attorney to protect one's business interests.

Trustee communications with beneficiaries have followed an interesting legal path in Kentucky. The original Kentucky statute regarding communication with the beneficiaries required that the trustee must keep the beneficiaries reasonably informed about trust activities. This statute, KRS 386.715, did not make a distinction between revocable and irrevocable trusts. The traditional presumption is that a settlor may change a revocable trust at will, and thus the trustee of a revocable trust did not have a duty to notify beneficiaries of trust status, as the identity of the beneficiaries could potentially be in flux.

As we approach the middle of the year, this is the perfect time to consider tax planning for your business and whether you need to make any changes to your current tax strategies.

Readers may have heard that the Housing of Representatives passed a bill last month that would repeal the estate tax. The bill, which passed on a vote of 240 to 179, is largely backed by Republicans, with Democrats mostly voting against the measure. Although the proposal is unlikely to pass all the way through the legislative process, it is interesting to ponder how it would affect small businesses.