The goal of estate planning is to reduce how much the government gets from what you leave behind. This can be a real challenge to small business owners who generally live their lives in the mode of building and growing. It can be very difficult for the entrepreneur to minimize his or her estate when they are spending so much time and effort trying to increase it.
How successful you are at reducing your estate frequently depends upon how early you put in place an estate plan. The Best-Case scenario is to put the ownership of a new business into a living trust before it makes it’s first nickel. Some planners recommend putting non-voting stock into an irrevocable trust for the benefit of family, while keeping voting stock in a separate living trust, where the entrepreneur continues to retain control
