Business Owners
Business owners often spend years building successful companies, yet many discover that coordinating personal wealth, taxes, retirement, and succession planning can be just as complex as running the business itself. At Peak, we help integrate these moving pieces into a comprehensive financial strategy so your business success supports your long-term personal, family, and legacy goals.
Who We Serve - Business Owners
A business owner’s corporate success and personal wealth accumulation should be on inseparable tracks. Yet managing a life in perpetual motion often results in the fragmentation of critical planning domains and a siloed approach that may leave meaningful opportunities unaddressed.
Peak Asset Management works with business owners to bring greater coherence to financial planning by coordinating strategies that connect your business lifecycle with your retirement and legacy goals.
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An Integrated Tax Planning Approach
An organized, well-designed holistic approach is paramount. With every corporate decision potentially triggering a personal tax consequence, integrating disciplines such as tax planning, personal financial planning, and investment management can help align salary, distributions, and reinvestment strategies with the goal of managing effective rates. Though outcomes can often depend on individual circumstances, tax law changes, and other factors outside of our control, Peak stays actively involved to harmonize all associated tax planning. -
Asset Protection and Entity Structure
Different business structures offer varied tradeoffs. The appropriate entity ultimately depends on your priorities, but isolating liabilities, protecting personal assets, and setting the stage for tax-efficient growth (and possibly a future sale), should always be considered upfront. A well-drafted operating agreement addressing objectives and properly structured insurance can help avoid conflict, support business continuity, and manage future claims. Peak tackles these fundamental matters and identifies and quarterbacks outside professionals to assist as needed. -
Retirement Planning and Income Replacement
Understanding business cash flow projected to move through to the personal income statement and balance sheet is critical to creating much needed liquidity outside the business. Transitioning from corporate revenue to a sustainable personal income stream can mean deploying an array of tax-efficient savings strategies that might include individual 401ks and SEP IRAs, non-qualified deferred compensation, cash-balance plans, or defined benefit strategies. Coordinating these techniques with a future plan to transition or sell the business and general retirement and legacy planning is essential. -
Ownership Transition, Discounted Interest Transfers and Legacy Considerations
Transitioning a business doesn’t have to be an all-or-nothing event. Peak can help business owners evaluate the financial, tax, and liquidity implications of an outright sale, while also exploring strategies for transferring ownership interests over time to employees or family members.
By leveraging entities and transferring minority interests and non-voting shares, business ownership interests can be moved at reduced valuations, which can curtail gift and estate tax exposure. These strategies can be complex, require careful valuation support, and may be subject to IRS scrutiny. Costs of establishing and maintaining the appropriate structures should also be considered. Robust buy-sell agreements funded with properly structured life insurance are an additional consideration when multiple ownership interests are present, providing business continuity and liquidity for a family without resulting in a forced sale of the company.
And what if there are philanthropic intentions? How might this fit into the equation? The optionality can be overwhelming, and Peak can help sort out the proper strategies and appropriate planning.
Peak Asset Management focuses on organizing and prioritizing objectives. We take a deep dive in both the business and personal financials to understand entity structure, cash flow, tax circumstances, timelines, liquidity, and transition and legacy plans to provide actionable solutions and meaningful guidance. Aligning all elements is a must – Peak can assist in getting you there.
Michael and Ann’s Story
