P. Haans Mulder

Estate planning is important for a number of different reasons. Making your intentions clear, avoiding a costly administration process, and keeping the process as simple and least burdensome to your loved ones are the most common I hear from my clients. What clients and advisers sometimes forget in this process are the impact of taxes […]

As companies grow and hire employees, many business owners are so busy they don’t realize there are things they can do to avoid expensive lawsuits in the future. One of them is a well written employee handbook. An employee handbook is a description of the company’s mission, values, and policies that impact employees. There a

Many seniors wonder how to best protect their home. This risk comes up because their health declines and they need medical care in an assisted living facility or skilled nursing facility. At this stage, they could be pursuing Medicaid benefits to help pay for their care. Fortunately, the Medicaid rules allow them to keep their

Do you know what the future will be for the people you will leave your estate to? I don’t intend that to be a rhetorical question, but we can all agree we don’t know the future for our loved ones. They could continue to live fulfilling lives. Or, they could experience (through no fault of

If you’ve owned a business for some time, you’re proud of it. You’re serving your customers or clients. You’ve provided jobs to your employees and likely consider them part of your family. You also likely give back to your community in a number of ways. Your customers, employees, and the community would be significantly affected

Business owners are faced with putting out fires each and every day. Since their time and resources are limited, they have to prioritize which ones are worth dealing with right then and there and which ones they should develop a plan or structure to put them out in the future. Legal “fires” for business owners

The local economy remains very strong and businesses continue to grow. I find these are good times for business owners to determine whether they’re protected against risks that could cause major distress to their company. One of them is not having an ownership agreement (also known as a shareholder, buy-sell, or operating agreement) that adequately

Last month, I wrote about the interest of business owners in developing a business advisory board to help them grow their companies. In this article, I want to focus on the how-to’s of this process and getting started. It fundamentally begins with the purpose of the board and composition of the group. The business owner

Business owners know that even the best plans can’t cover every possible situation and risk. However, there are some contingencies that owners should prepare themselves for. One of them is the possible death of another owner. This can be devastating in particular if the owner is a “key employee” in the business. Nothing can bring

I’ve see an increased interest among my clients in creating a “business advisory board.” The purpose I hear most often in developing this type of board is to provide the owners with insight or expertise that they don’t have in house. A close second is that the board helps owners develop strategic perspective on the