Your LLC won’t save you if you personally hurt someone on the job or botch work your license covers. The company shields you from a lot of business debts. Not from your own bad acts. Here’s where the line is. #LLC #smallbusiness

Avoid personal guarantees on LLC debts whenever possible. Landlords and lenders often require them for new businesses lacking credit history, making you personally liable if the business can't pay. #LLCTips #BusinessFinance

Are you personally liable for your LLC's debts? Generally, no. But proper formation, an operating agreement, and demonstrating it's a real business are key to maintaining that limited liability protection. #LLC #BusinessLaw

Thinking your LLC disappears if you don't dissolve it? Nope. An un-dissolved LLC doesn't just vanish. #LLCTips #BusinessLaw

Your will can leave your Bitcoin to your kids. It can’t give them the seed phrase. Crypto estate planning needs legal authority AND actual access. Here’s how to handle both in Minnesota: andrewmayers.com/blog/digita…

Your will says who gets your house. It says nothing about your 401(k). A man in my conference room learned that last week. He’d remarried and updated his will twice. Everything to his new wife. But his $400,000 401(k) still named his ex-wife. He hadn’t looked at that form since before the divorce. If he’d died that week, the plan could have paid his ex-wife. His will didn’t matter. The divorce settlement didn’t matter. A 401(k) pays whoever is named on the form. Minnesota law automatically cancels an ex-spouse’s beneficiary designation after divorce. But federal law overrides it for 401(k)s and most employer plans. For those, the old form controls. You can spend $10,000 on a full estate plan and still lose $400,000 to a form you signed years ago. Married, divorced, new kid? Check your beneficiary forms. The form always wins.

Shutting down your business? Proper dissolution filings start clocks for creditors to sue, typically within 120-90 days, but up to 5 years after publication. Letting it lapse keeps you liable indefinitely. Consult an attorney for clarity on your liability. #BusinessTips #LLC

Three siblings who grew up sharing a bedroom now only talk through attorneys. The cause: one deed their parents signed in 2004. The parents bought a property and added their oldest son to the title. No lawyer. Mom promised all three kids would split it equally. Nobody wrote that down. Twenty years later, both parents were gone and the property was worth $250,000+ more than they paid. Their oldest son was on the deed as a joint owner, so the whole thing passed to him automatically. Mom’s promise didn’t matter. A verbal promise can’t override a recorded deed. Two of three kids were cut out, and nobody intended it. Putting a child on your deed isn’t estate planning. It’s a gift with your other kids’ inheritance attached.

Failing to dissolve your LLC doesn't make it disappear. The key difference is administrative termination versus a proper winding up. Missing filings leads to administrative dissolution, often fixable with a small fee, proving your business is still active. #LLC #BusinessTips

Neglecting your annual business renewal can lead to a lawsuit served to an old address. A default judgment can be costly and complex to fight, even if you had a valid defense. Ensure your business details are up-to-date to avoid surprises. #BusinessTips #Legal

The #Yankees just got swept in three games by Tampa Bay. A massive payroll didn’t save them. There’s a business lesson in there somewhere, and I need a good distraction right now. -> We assume resources guarantee results. Big budget, known brand, past wins. October baseball doesn’t care about your payroll. The market doesn’t care about your old trophies. -> Execution beats budget. You can buy the best software and hire the best consultants. If your operations crack when demand spikes, the check you wrote won’t save you. -> Plan for the slump before it shows up. If your top salesperson quits or a partner has an emergency, does the business keep running? Or does it freeze because the plan lived in one person’s head? Good companies don’t hope their stars stay hot. They write it down: operating agreements, documented processes, a backup plan. Don’t just admire your roster. Make sure your foundation can survive a slump.

Our family visits a museum everywhere we travel: Hamilton's birthplace on Nevis, Edison's lab, the Ball Wall at Yankee Stadium. Each of us always notices something different. October newsletter: online.flippingbook.com/view…

"Sarah" came in expecting a 15-minute signature check on her mom's estate plan. She stayed 90 minutes. Nobody had ever told her what being a successor trustee actually means. Her mother named her successor trustee three years ago. Mom felt good about checking the box. Sarah took it as an honor. Neither of them knew it was a job, not a title. The job: find and manage every account. Get a tax ID for the trust in some circumstances. Handle creditors and taxes. Get it wrong, and the trustee can be personally liable. Then the accounting. Every expense, every receipt, every dollar distributed, in writing, to the other beneficiaries. When siblings disagree, the trustee takes the heat. Naming a trustee isn't paperwork. You're handing someone a legal job in the middle of their grief. If you haven't told them what it involves, you haven't finished your plan.

A will is just one part of a comprehensive estate plan. Other key documents include powers of attorney for finances and healthcare, living wills, HIPAA authorizations, personal property memorandums, and funeral preference memos. #EstatePlanning #LegalTips

A simple will might create more family disputes than it solves. It offers no protection from estate taxes, creditors, lawsuits, or divorce. Consider advanced planning for assets around $3 million. #EstatePlanning #LegalTips #Wills

Seven years ago, a practicing lawyer had a stroke. Not married. No kids. No healthcare directive. No power of attorney. If a lawyer can leave himself that exposed, anyone can. If you're married, the law gives your spouse at least a starting point. If you're single, there is no default person. Not your parents. Not your siblings. Not your partner. Your mortgage, loans, and utilities don't pause while you're in a hospital bed. Without a durable financial power of attorney, your family can't touch your accounts to pay them. So they hire a lawyer and petition a probate judge for guardianship and conservatorship. Legal fees. Delay. Open court. A judge who's never met you picks who's in charge. A healthcare directive and a durable financial power of attorney fix this before the emergency. You choose who speaks for you. Skip them, and a courtroom chooses.

A prospective client showed me a thick trust binder and said his family wouldn't owe a dime in estate taxes. "Everything is protected." His estate was worth $3.5 million. In Minnesota, that's a problem. House. Cabin up north. Retirement accounts. An operating business. Nothing unusual. Together: $3.5 million. Minnesota's estate tax exemption is $3 million. And unlike federal law, there's no portability between spouses. His revocable trust kept everything out of probate court. That part worked. It did nothing for taxes. You control a revocable trust while you're alive, so the IRS and Minnesota treat every dollar in it as yours. $500,000 over the Minnesota line. Rates start at 13%. That's roughly $65,000 his family wasn't planning to pay. A revocable trust is a privacy tool, not a tax shield. It keeps your family out of court. It doesn't keep them out of the Department of Revenue.