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Written by : Camellia Showen |
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should I convert my farm business to an LLC the short answer is it's definitely worth consideration limited liability companies in Pennsylvania have become by and large the entity of choice for small businesses a limited liability company is available for entities with as many as one owner to as many as like from a tax standpoint it's not all that different than how many farms are currently set up a multiple member LLC can be taxed as a partnership while a one-member LLC will be taxed as a disregarded entity just like a sole proprietorship the limited liability company offers for its members protection from liability unlike a partnership more like a corporation one of the advantages of forming the LLC is that you can contribute real estate to the LLC tax-free through the Realty transfer tax exclusion for real estate devoted to the business of agriculture if you are contemplating forming an LLC you'll want to meet with an attorney to discuss through the drafting and preparation of an operating agreement that's carefully tailored to your needs that would include specific buy/sell provisions that address the purchase of a withdrawing deceased or incapacitated members ownership interest
Thanks for your comment Williams Galstad, have a nice day.
- Camellia Showen, Staff Member
okay and we are now recording of this week's webinar it's the final webinar of 2018 you can see the blue link here extension dot UMD edu backslash women in Ag you'll be able to view this webinar and previous ones at that link as well as check out our 2019 so we have a webinar the second and fourth Wednesday of each month we also have the upcoming Annie's project classes we have two of those that are happening here in the mid-atlantic as well as the mid-atlantic women and AG conference which is scheduled for February 13th so just very excited about all the women and Ag programs coming up through the winter session and then into 2019 again we are recording if you have any questions there's a chat pod you can ask those questions of Sarah she's going to be our presenter today Sarah Everhart talking about using an LLC to strengthen your farm operation and as I'm passing the ball to her so she can pull up her PowerPoint I'd like to thank our sponsors of this program as well as we have a number of collaborators that we work with across the mid-atlantic states so thanks so much for them so Sarah I'm now sharing with you and yet we're starting to see your PowerPoint excellent so again any questions from the participants please use the chat pod you should be seeing Sarah's presentation now so thanks Anna let me just make this a little bit smaller I can see all right well good afternoon everybody and thank you for joining me during this busy holiday season so we're going to talk about using an LLC to strengthen your farm operation and as Shannon said and just make sure I can progress through my slides here I work for the agricultural law education initiative and that means I'm an attorney that works for the University of Maryland my job is to provide legal education and outreach to farmers across Maryland I work with my colleagues at the University of Maryland College Park and the University of Maryland Eastern Shore I actually work for the University of Maryland School of Law and we are a program of empowering the state our website is um a glog org so if you've never checked out our resources I encourage you to do so we have a variety of different publications to explain all different sorts of agricultural law topics in an easy to understand way this is this claimer I am presenting legal education here today not legal advice so I will encourage you I always encourage folks to seek individual legal advice and in this on this topic in particular LLC's are something that is really a customized type of animal as we'll talk about today so just giving you a general overview today for educational purposes always a good idea to seek your own individual legal advice all right so let's with what is an LLC since it's in acronyms and sometimes I think folks get a little bit confused when we're in when we start using acronyms and talking about business entities so an LLC is a limited liability company and good business entity sometimes they're referred to as a business organization similar to a partnership or a corporation there's many different types of business entities out there an LLC can really do anything a person can do so it can buy owned or sell property or assets it can read farmland it can employ workers so an entity is really just sort of a substitute for a human being I'm just going to be talking about LLC's today because there's plenty of talk plenty of things to talk about on that subject however we have some really good resources on our website which sort of walk you through and explain the various types of business organizations that are out there and how they can be utilized in the farm context so if you want to learn more you can check out this publication that I have a picture of here we also walk through each type of or many different types of business entities in video format so if you're tired of reading and you'd rather click on some videos you can find all that information on our website um AG lot work alright so what are the advantages of an LLC LLC's are very popular and the reason for that is because they're more flexible than a typical corporation so you can have contributions in any form there's no limit to the number of members that you can have and so the folks who own an interest in an LLC are called members as opposed to in a corporation they're referred to as shareholder so you'll hear me use the word members today but it's really sort of the equivalent of a shareholder in a corporation who can be a part of an LLC really anybody so individuals entities Straw corporations they can all be members so if your farm already has a trust or a partnership or a corporation you can have those entities and individuals all join together and be members of an LLC a reason that a lot of folks are interested in forming an LLC the reasons will vary and we'll go through some of those reasons today but one of the big benefits is that members of an LLC have personal liability protection I'll talk about that in a little bit more detail in a minute and another advantage is that an LLC provides a framework for a business to grow in transition to the next generation so this is a big advantage in the farm context when you're dealing with families multiple owners of a business it it can really give you a good sort of starting off point where you could have some liability protection and then also have a framework to bring in owners in the future if you think the next generation is going to be interested in joining in the farm operation and or allows senior members to relinquish control and ownership over time and slowly transition in the next generation disadvantages of an LLC frankly there's not that many disadvantages so I use the word disadvantages but really for any business entity you're going to need legal assistance to form a fully viable LLC so it's a disadvantage of an LLC and really it's a disadvantage that all business entities will most I mean sometime you know people can form a partnership technically without seeking legal assistance if it's just two folks going into business together but it's not going to be a very well-organized business entity if it doesn't have a partnership agreement you're going to need legal assistance for that but for now I'll see you're definitely going to need to seek some legal assistance you can do a little bit of homework on your own because the first thing you're going to need to do is to choose a name and you can use this link here to go through the state of Maryland and make sure that the names not already in use so that's something that you can get settled before you go see that attorney and that would be a good thing for you to do and you can also take a look at the forms that you're going to need to fill out fairly simple fill in the blank pipe forms for the articles of organization you're going to need to designate a resident agent and a resident agent is the person in the LLC who is going to be responsible for filing annual paperwork if your LLC was involved in some type of litigation and was served that would be the person that would need to be served so the resident agent should really be a perso
Thanks Augustine your participation is very much appreciated
- Camellia Showen
About the author
I've studied norwegian history at Lynn University in Boca Raton and I am an expert in social movements. I usually feel dirty. My previous job was food preparation worker I held this position for 9 years, I love talking about farming and geography. Huge fan of Ethan Hawke I practice vault and collect steiff teddy bears.
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