When asked about their planning process, ranchers often get annoyed. The future is unpredictable. Too much can happen. For many, the concept of long-term planning is a sort of voodoo, crystal-ball gazing of the most self-delusionary sort. The world changes too fast. There is too little information. And there is too much to do that is much more urgent and important. If ranchers think of planning ownership transition and management succession, it is often because those thoughts are forced on them by legislators and tax laws. Who knew there could be a positive side to taxation? Yet, even if the estate tax laws were abolished, important strategic decisions would still have to be made about what steps to take: 1) to preserve the family culture, 2) to protect and build the value of the ranch, 3) to assure competent management, and 4) to distribute the right assets to the right people, at the right time, in the right way, and in the right form. Tax planning is at least a start, but since it is motivated mostly by the desire to save on taxes, it does little to force ranch owners to address the other key decisions about the future in any real depth. This is why many excellent tax plans can have disastrous effects on business partnerships and families; theplanners and the families fail to explore and define concepts like culture, value, competence, and right as they apply uniquely to the family and to the ranch operation involved. In more than 30 years of close relationship with hundreds of family operations, in town and in the country, we have learned that the combination that unlocks the family business future is encoded in three concepts: culture, vision, and investment strategy. No successful planning is possible without focused and persistent effort to decode these three concepts.
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