Author Archives: Kathy Lane

Do You Have a Succession Plan for Your Small Business?

You probably have a will and/or a trust that covers what you want done with your personal assets when you die. But do you have a formal succession plan for your small business?

According to the Small Business Administration, about 90% of businesses are owned by a family. And about 90% of those family business owners believe that their business will be kept in the family when they can no longer run it. However, according to the Family Business Institute, only about 30% of family and businesses survive into the second generation.

Planning for your succession is critically important and has implications for your employees, business structure, assets and tax obligation, but it isn’t easy.

You should think about who you want to take over your business if something happens to you. Choosing someone to replace you as head of your organization may be as simple as appointing a family member who has been working in the business. On the other hand, there may be several people from whom you will have to choose and each may have different strengths and weaknesses. The correct decision is vital; it may cause family conflict and turmoil which, in turn, may impact the continued success or future failure of the company.

Another thing to think about is whether you want to sell your business to family members or just give it to them. This may have tax implications for your estate and for those family members.

If you have partners, do you have a buy/sell agreement with them?

There are several different business succession planning strategies. Make sure you speak with an estate planner who is skilled in this area, explore the options and create the plan that will be the best option for your small business.

Zombie Bank Account – Will Bill Payments Stop After You Die?

Do you have a list of all of your automatic payments? If you receive paper bills and then write checks to cover them, there’s no problem. When you die, your heirs can just notify those companies who are sending the bills that you are deceased and they can close the accounts. But if you have payments automatically taken out of your checking account or charged to a credit card every month, your heirs will not find paper bills and may not know who they need to notify.

Even though Richard Palmer, Sr.’s family thought they had closed his bank account after he died, a month later it sprang back to life and started processing incoming charges (this type of account is called a zombie bank account) and electronic payments kept being made….until there was an overdraft of $888,888!

You should make a list of all of the automatic payments that are made on your behalf every month and put a list of those payments with your important papers. That way, your family will know who to contact after you’re gone and they won’t find themselves with a huge overdraft like the family of Richard Palmer, Sr.

Die While You’re a Google Employee

Some companies treat their employees well while they’re alive but provide a few death benefits. However, no other company has a program as rich as Google’s. The benefits for living employees are amazing but those for the deceased’s family are broad and unusual.

The deceased’s spouse or domestic partner (can be same sex) receives 50% of their salary for 10 years.
All of the dead Google employee’s stock vest immediately.
Each child of the employee receives $1,000 per month until age 19…or age 23 for a full time student.
And there’s no tenure requirement. All employees qualify.

Why does Google do this? Obviously, there’s no benefit to the company. However, according to Google’s Chief People Officer, Laszio Bock, the company feels that it’s important “to help our families through this horrific if inevitable life event.”

So, if you want your loved ones to be well cared for financially after you’re gone and you’re not super rich or you don’t have a ton of life insurance, get a job at Google and continue to work there until you die.

Planning for Incapacity or Death: “A Cranky Old Man”

A friend sent me this poem by a “Cranky Old Man”. It has a message that all of us should think about as we care for elderly or incapacitated family members.

When an old man died in the geriatric ward of a nursing home in an Australian country town, it was believed that he had nothing left of any value.

Later, when the nurses were going through his meagre possessions, They found this poem. Its quality and content so impressed the staff that copies were made and distributed to every nurse in the hospital.

One nurse took her copy to Melbourne. The old man’s sole bequest to posterity has since appeared in the Christmas editions of magazines around the country and appearing in mags for Mental Health. A slide presentation has also been made based on his simple, but eloquent, poem.

And this old man, with nothing left to give to the world, is now the author of this ‘anonymous’ poem winging across the Internet.

Cranky Old Man

What do you see nurses? . . .. . .What do you see?
What are you thinking .. . when you’re looking at me?
A cranky old man, . . . . . .not very wise,
Uncertain of habit .. . . . . . . .. with faraway eyes?
Who dribbles his food .. . … . . and makes no reply.
When you say in a loud voice . .’I do wish you’d try!’
Who seems not to notice . . .the things that you do.
And forever is losing . . . . . .. . . A sock or shoe?
Who, resisting or not . . . … lets you do as you will,
With bathing and feeding . . . .The long day to fill?
Is that what you’re thinking?. .Is that what you see?
Then open your eyes, nurse .you’re not looking at me.
I’ll tell you who I am . . . . .. As I sit here so still,
As I do at your bidding, .. . . . as I eat at your will.
I’m a small child of Ten . .with a father and mother,
Brothers and sisters .. . . .. . who love one another
A young boy of Sixteen . . . .. with wings on his feet
Dreaming that soon now . . .. . . a lover he’ll meet.
A groom soon at Twenty . . . ..my heart gives a leap.
Remembering, the vows .. .. .that I promised to keep.
At Twenty-Five, now . . . . .I have young of my own.
Who need me to guide . . . And a secure happy home.
A man of Thirty . .. . . . . My young now grown fast,
Bound to each other . . .. With ties that should last.
At Forty, my young sons .. .have grown and are gone,
But my woman is beside me . . to see I don’t mourn.
At Fifty, once more, .. …Babies play ’round my knee,
Again, we know children . . . . My loved one and me.
Dark days are upon me . . . . My wife is now dead.
I look at the future … . . . . I shudder with dread.
For my young are all rearing .. . . young of their own.
And I think of the years . . . And the love that I’ve known.
I’m now an old man . . . . . . .. and nature is cruel.
It’s jest to make old age . . . . . . . look like a fool.
The body, it crumbles .. .. . grace and vigour, depart.
There is now a stone . . . where I once had a heart.
But inside this old carcass . A young man still dwells,
And now and again . . . . . my battered heart swells
I remember the joys . . . . .. . I remember the pain.
And I’m loving and living . . . . . . . life over again.
I think of the years, all too few . . .. gone too fast.
And accept the stark fact . . . that nothing can last.
So open your eyes, people .. . . . .. . . open and see.
Not a cranky old man .
Look closer . . . . see .. .. . .. …. . ME!!

Stieg Larsson died with no will

Stieg Larsson, the man who wrote the milenium trilogy including the novel, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, died suddenly in 2004 at the age of 50. At the time of his death, he was not yet famous and he was living modestly with his partner, Eva Gabrielsson. In fact, they had been living together in Sweden for 32 years.

Larsson spent his career investigating rightwing extremism and received many death threats. He feared that getting married would make them an even bigger target. Despite that, he and Eva finally set a date for the ceremony but Larsson died before it could take place.

The couple had talked about setting up a company in which the two of them would share all of their assets as well as any money earned for writing books and articles. The company would provide that if one of them died, the other one would get everything. Because of this plan, Larsson felt that a will would be unnecessary and so never prepared one. But the company was not set up before Larsson’s death.

Sweden has no provision in their law for inheritance by common-law spouses so when Larsson died without a will, his brother and father inherited everything he owned, including the rights to his books and the profits that the 50 million copies sold made.

In 2007, the family gave Gabrielsson ownership of the modest apartment in which she and Larsson had lived and offered her $2.75 million. She turned down the offer because she wants control of the estate so she can manage the handling of the books, including movie and other publication rights. There is a partial manuscript for a 4th book in the series; since she supposedly helped Larsson write the trilogy and the manuscript is in her possession, she could finish the novel but she refuses to hand it over to Larsson’s family.

If only Larsson had written a will, settlement of the estate could have been handled smoothly and in a timely manner. Instead, in 2012 (more than 8 years later), the dispute is still going on.

Don’t put yourself in this position. Make sure you have a will so your estate will go to the person you want it to….not the one the government dictates. For more information about this topic, go to diesmart.com.