LIFE
Buy-Sell Planning Vaults Higher Estate Tax Bar T he higher estate tax exemption removed one need for life insurance, but advisors have another opportunity to help protect business owners. By William P. Stark
W
hen Congress passed the American Tax Relief Act of 2012, it also removed one of the key needs for large life insurance policies. The estate and gift tax exemptions were raised from $1 million to $5 million for individuals and $10 million for married couples. Additionally, the estate and gift exemptions will be indexed for inflation each year. In 2013, the exemptions are $5.25 million for individuals and twice that for married couples. Both exemptions are permanently extended for estates and gifts after Dec. 31, 2012. The top tax rate rose from 35 percent to 40 percent and portability of unused credit for surviving spouses also was made permanent. Because some high-net-worth clients will not have the same need for life insurance in estate planning, advisors might be interested in replacing much of this evaporated market with other opportunities. The business planning market is a logical choice. A key tool in that market is the buy-sell arrangement funded by life insurance.
Motivating the business owner
Start a conversation with the business owner about buy-sell planning with a thorough fact-gathering process. Basic facts include number of owners, ages, ownership percentages, type of business and the fair market value of the business. This process provides an excellent opportunity to showcase your expertise and motivate the client to take action. Ask the business owner to consider different scenarios regarding business continuation. Typical questions to ask are: 38
InsuranceNewsNet Magazine » May 2013
If one of your owners died, would you like to be in business with the deceased owner’s family? If you died, would you want the well-being of your family to be dependent on your surviving owners’ continued success in the business? Ninety-nine percent of the time, the answers to these questions will be an emphatic “No.” A good follow-up question is: “Would you like to see how we could solve these issues with a funded buy-sell agreement?” The next step is outlining the business owners’ options and organizing the information so that an informed decision can be readily made.
Basic buy-sell arrangements
There are two basic forms of buy-sell arrangements: the cross purchase and the stock/entity redemption. Both are legal agreements between the business owners or the business itself. It specifies all material provisions of a buyout and, most importantly, obligates the deceased owner’s estate to sell its business interest to the other owners or business and for them to buy the deceased owner’s share. The buy-sell arrangement should cover
events such as death, retirement, disability, divorce or a lifetime sale of stock. Any buy-sell agreement should be coordinated with all of the owners’ estate-planning documents and vice versa. The impact of estate taxes should also be considered regarding the ownership of any life insurance policies. This analysis is easier and less likely to affect clients because of the higher estate and gift tax exemption amounts discussed above.
Cross-purchase arrangement
A cross-purchase arrangement is an agreement among the owners. Each agrees to buy a deceased owner’s share of the business upon a certain event such as death, and the deceased owner’s estate agrees to sell that share of the business to the other owners. Their purchase of the deceased owner’s business interest raises the surviving owners’ income-tax basis in the business. Therefore, if the business is sold after the buy-sell transaction is completed, the selling owner will pay fewer capital gain taxes. The cross-purchase arrangement is easy to fund with two owners. Each owns a life insurance policy on the other. If they are of similar age and health status, the premiums are also similar. If one of the owners