Providing Asset Protection to a Rental Property

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Rental property held in your name subjects many of your assets (usually, including your home) to liabilities of the rental. Additionally, the rental is subject to your personal liabilities. By placing the rental property into a limited liability company (an “LLC”), we can protect your personal assets from the liability of the rental, and the rental from your personal liability. Structured appropriately, the LLC can be disregarded for tax purposes, resulting in no additional tax return.

Asset Protecting a Multi-Rental Property Structure

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Rental properties held in your name subject your personal assets to the liability of the rentals. Additionally, each rental is subject to your personal liability and the liability of all the other rental properties. By placing each rental property into a limited liability company (an “LLC”) and holding each of these LLCs is another LLC designed to be a holding company, we can protect your personal assets from the liability of the rentals, and each rental from your personal liability and the liability of the other rentals.

Reducing the Estate Tax Exposure of Your Future Estate

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There are a multitude of opportunities to reduce your future estate taxes depending on your goals and the values and types of assets that are expected to be part of your taxable estate. An easy example is using a Life Insurance Trust to eliminate estate taxes on life insurance that may otherwise be 40% or more at your death. Alternately, various lifetime gifting and sale strategies can be used to reduce your future estate tax exposure (and these are often extremely useful for entrepreneurs).

Protecting from Business Liability in a Tax Efficient Manner Using a Captive Insurance Company

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Most, if not all, companies (including single person consulting and other businesses) have uninsured liability. The U.S. Tax Code provides an incredibly valuable incentive designed to bring captive insurance companies to businesses across the spectrum of revenue. If structured property, you can establish a captive insurance company to insure against otherwise uninsured losses in your business. The business receives a regular tax deduction for the premium it pays to your captive. However, the receipt of the premium by the captive may be completely tax free—effectively allowing companies you own to generate a deduction with no offsetting income tax pickup.

Avoiding Probate in Multiple Jurisdictions Due to the Ownership of Real Property

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Using a fully funded revocable trust as the foundational estate planning document is always the best way to avoid probate. Holding non-residential properties in LLCs established in the state of the property will also avoid probate on these properties and will add asset protection to your ownership. Both techniques may be used in conjunction with one another.

Providing an Incentive to a Key Employee to Encourage Retention

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Giving a key employee phantom equity is often a way to compensate an employee as an owner without giving up any actual ownership in your business. Phantom equity is usually a cash bonus program that mirrors dividend payments to owners.

Selling a Business in an Asset Protected, Tax Efficient Structure

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Whether you are selling stock (or membership interests) or the assets of your business, most business sales can be structured to provide significant asset protection of the sales proceeds and a tax efficient, often deferred, outcome.