Farm Succession Planning

When you started your farming business you had a vision and a goal. You invested years of effort to make it a success. And like most business owners, you want your business to go on, even after you are no longer running it.

What is your vision for the future of your farming business and what are your goals for its succession? The decisions you make about the future of your business will go a long way to determining whether it survives the transition from one generation to the next.

At Daley Zucker, LLC, our agricultural lawyers in Harrisburg can help you make the critical decisions that lie ahead as it related to farm succession planning.

Planning for the future is much easier when you work with an attorney who thoroughly understands agricultural law and knows what’s at stake.

How We Can Help with Farm Succession Planning

When you begin farm succession planning, it’s important to recognize that the family farm is a business and must be treated as one in order to ensure its success.

This planning is much easier with the help of an experienced agricultural lawyer because farm succession planning has added dynamics that are unique to other types of businesses such as:

• Special valuation options and restrictions on ownership to be able to take advantage of the new exemptions available for Pennsylvania inheritance tax
• Clean & Green property tax reductions
• Crop insurance
• Participation in CREP, and a myriad of other programs only available to the farm community

All of these considerations require the involvement of an experienced attorney who is familiar with how they will impact your farm business.

At Daley Zucker, LLC, we can also help you navigate every step of your farm succession process including:

• Timing: When do you want to start transitioning out of the business and how quickly?
• Future Owners: Who will you be transitioning the business to?
• Training: How are you going to assist the next generation of owners to be prepared to take over when the time comes?
• Funding: How is the business being transferred? Are you gifting it? Are you selling it? Is it a combination of a gift and a sale? If it is a sale, how are you getting your payments?
• Retirement Needs: What is the selling/retiring owner’s income needs and ongoing income expectations? Do we anticipate those needs changing over time?
• Expectations: What are the current expectations of the owners? What are the expectations of the ones you want to take over?
• Cash Flows: Is the plan realistic? Are the funds there to make it work?
• Fairness: Are there family members who are not in the business? How will they be protected? Family leadership and dynamics are important factors which must be part of every farm succession conversation.

Our goal and yours is the same – to position your farming business to succeed as it passes from one generation to the next.

Want to find out more?