Best Estate Planning Attorneys in Woburn, MA

Does My Business Need Its Own Trust? If you don’t already have a living trust in place, then it’s a good idea to have your business assigned to one in order to avoid probate and clarify your wishes. If your family already has a living trust, then you can assign or transfer the business ownership interest to the pre-existing trust so long as it has adequate provisions within the trust to account for such business interests. For example, if there is a buy-sell provision related to the business, then you want to make sure the trust reflects the terms of such agreement. If you feel your pre-existing trust is inadequate, you may modify or amend the trust accordingly. A brief background on businesses and trusts: Back in the Rockefeller / Standard Oil days, trusts were used like holding companies (in fact, you would often hear the word “business trusts” to describe a company), but that all came to an end with the antitrust laws and the use of more modern business structures: corporations, partnerships, and LL Cs (with most small businesses now using LLC’s or S Corps). But, sometime the standard LLC operating agreement doesn’t cut it, so here are some ways business owners use trusts to optimize their estate planning: Tax Planning Opportunities In the past, I’ve seen clients set up a trust for each of their children (or grandchildren), with each trust having partial ownership in the family business. To do this type of trust structuring, you would need...