The Importance of Financial Planning

Financial Broker Vs Bank Advisor Part 2: Long Vs Short Term

It can be difficult to cultivate any kind of meaningful relationship with a Financial Advisor at your bank, as they can often be more focused on hitting their quarterly sales targets than in your long term financial well-being. If you are deemed worthy enough to be called in for an annual review you might also find that the Advisor you previously met has been transferred to another branch in a reshuffle.

Impartial Financial Brokers, on the other hand, are singularly focused on building long term relationships with our clients as we know it takes time, expert planning and regular reviews to truly achieve your financial goals and aspirations. That’s why we’ve called ourselves Lifetime Financial Planning to better reflect our ethos of long term focus on your financial wellbeing.

We want you to succeed in your long term financial goals as your success means our client is happy, and happy clients return to us for more business. We certainly wouldn’t have lasted over 30 years in this business if we were solely interested in short term relationships and quarterly sales targets. So the question is, what kind of relationship would you prefer with your Financial Advisor?

If you have already availed of a free financial planning service or purchased a financial product which you wish to review, I would be happy to do it for you. Call me at 046 924 0961 or email: aidan@lifetimefinancial.ie Website: www.lifetimefinancial.ie
Aidan Wall Financial Services Ltd T/A Lifetime Financial Planning is regulated by the Central Bank of Ireland.

The Importance of Financial Planning

Protecting Your Family Business Interests

As a business owner you protect your property, your vehicles and equipment. And so you should because if your business suffers a catastrophic event involving these, the very financial viability of your business may be in jeopardy. But have you considered what would happen to your business if you died prematurely or if you were so incapacitated, through illness or injury, that you could not run your business anymore. Equally, if you have fellow shareholders or partners or you have a key member of your business team, who are vital to the viability of the business, think about the consequences if the same happened to one of them.

Key Issues:

You may need to consider the impact on your business and/or your family should any of the circumstances mentioned above unfortunately come to pass.

  • Would your family stay in the business or would they be required to sell the business?
  • Would the remaining shareholders/partners, such as Canada online casino Maple Leaf, in the business have the funds needed to buy your share from your family?
  • Would you have the funds available to buy your co-owner’s share of the business from their family?
  • What would be the impact on your business in the event of the death/impairment of a key employee or business partner?
  • What about the tax implications?

It won’t happen to my/our business

Many business owners believe that it simply won’t happen to them. The chances of one partner / director, in a two or three man business dying or becoming seriously ill before retirement, are probably a lot higher than you might think and it does happen. Quite often what is left is a very serious financial problem mainly through the lack of readily available capital to deal with the consequences.

There is a Solution

Business protection can assist in ensuring the continued survival of a business and provide for a deceased business owner’s family in the event of premature death or serious illness and incapacity.

Shareholder/Partnership Insurance (Business Owner’s Insurance)

This provides funds, through the proceeds of an Insurance Policy, to the surviving business owners to purchase the share of a deceased’s shareholding from their personal representatives. Depending on the structure of the business the cover can be set up on a personal or corporate basis. This cover ensures the deceased’s legal representatives / next of kin are provided for and the surviving business owners retain control of the business. The cover in question should be carefully co-related to a properly structured shareholders agreement that addresses the wishes of shareholders/co-owners in the event of such an occurrence.

Keyperson Insurance

This type of cover is designed to protect the human assets of the business in the same way as fire insurance protects a company’s physical assets. Protection, again through an appropriate Insurance Policy, is taken out by a Company on the life of a key employee to protect the Company as a result of the death or serious illness of the key employee.

Gift or Inheritance Tax Planning

As a business owner, it is important also to take a close look at the implications of Capital Acquisitions Tax if you are planning to pass on your business to your family when you die. Inheritance tax can become a real burden where financial resources are tied up in a business. If you do not plan ahead, your family could be faced with a difficult decision between having to sell the business or having to borrow the money to pay the tax liability. There are a number of solutions to this and Gift or Inheritance tax planning allows you to plan for the tax liabilities which could arise, thus ensuring that the business won’t have to be sold off to pay the tax bill.

The Next Step

Each of the situations outlined in this article requires very careful consideration and planning. The very first action should be to seek good and expert advice. Why not give us a call and together we can set the proper planning in train.

Call Aidan Wall today at 046 924 0961 or email: aidan@lifetimefinancial.ie for expert impartial advice on Business Protection.