WSJ Article: Amid Estate Tax Repeal Debate, Business Owners Struggle With Estate-Tax Strategies

The Wall Street Journal, in Emily Maltby's "Amid Debate, Business Owners Struggle with Estate Tax Strategies," notes that "whatever the outcome of the federal estate-tax debate in Congress, many family-owned businesses likely will continue to use a variety of strategies to cope with the tax."  The article explains that for many family-owned business owners who want their family business to pass to the next generation, "the value of their businesses is often tied up in property or equipment."  These owners, instead of placing their descendants in positions where they will have to sell these assets in order to pay estate taxes, oftentimes have turned to tax-avoidance strategies, including life insurance policies and inter-vivos transfers of business assets to their descendants.

=
Posted by Neil I. Rumbak, Associate Editor, Wealth Strategies Journal.