2 Strategies to Reduce Taxes from the Sale of Your Business

Recently, one of my colleagues took me aside and asked what I could do to help a 40-year-old client who sold his business last year for $40 million. He wanted to shelter the proceeds from capital gains taxes and possibly fund a trust for his family. We both already knew that the opportunity to reduce the tax recognition on the capital gain had long passed.

Had he sought our advice long before he was committed to the sale of this business, we could have explored some valuable options. Here are two of them.

The Qualified Small Business Stock Exclusion

One option our client may have considered is to investigate qualifying his business for Small Business Stock treatment under Section 1202 of the Internal Revenue Code (IRC). Section 1202 was added through the 1993 Revenue Reconciliation Act to encourage small business investment. A Qualified Small Business (QSB) is any active domestic C corporation engaged in certain business activities whose assets have a fair market value of not more than $50 million on or immediately after the original issuance of stock, regardless of any subsequent appreciation (IRC § 1202 (d)(1)).

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Qualified Small Business Stock that is issued after Aug. 10, 1993, and held for at least five years before it is sold may be partially or wholly exempt from federal capital gains taxes on the value of the shares sold, up to the greater of $10 million in eligible gain or 10 times the aggregate cost basis in the shares sold in each tax year (IRC § 1202 (b)(1)). Be aware that this limitation applies to each separate shareholder, and a trust, or multiple trusts, established and funded with QSB Stock gifted by a qualified QSB shareholder may enable much more than $10 million in gain exclusion. For QSB shares acquired after Sept. 27, 2010, the capital gain exclusion percentage is 100%, and it is excluded from alternative minimum taxes and the net investment income tax with the same five-year holding requirement (IRC § 1202 (a)(4)).

But only certain types of companies fall under the category of a QSB. To be a QSB, the domestic corporation must engage in a “Qualified Trade or Business” (QTB). Such a business will generally manufacture or sell products, as opposed to providing services and expertise. Businesses that generally will not qualify are those offering services in health, law, engineering, architecture, accounting, actuarial science, performing arts, consulting, athletics, financial services, brokerage services, banking and insurance, as well as hospitality businesses such as hotels and restaurants (IRC § 1202 (e)(3)).

To qualify and continue as a QSB, the business must follow certain rules (there are many, and these are the most basic): It must be a domestic C corporation when the stock is issued and when sold, and at least 80% of its assets must be used in the active conduct of one or more QTBs during substantially the entire five-year holding period. If the business is already an LLC or S corporation, it may still qualify if the business reorganizes and revokes the subchapter S election and issues new stock in the C corporation, then meets the holding period before selling.

It is critical that management of the company understands all of IRC Section 1202’s requirements and agrees to maintain the business in a manner that continues to satisfy the active business requirement and the asset investment limitations, and avoid the pitfalls related to stock redemptions, tax elections and conversions.

To summarize, in order for the QSB shareholder to claim the tax benefits upon sale, the following must apply: The shareholder may be a person or business not organized as a C-Corp; the QSB stock must be original issue and not purchased in trade for other stock; the shareholder must hold the QSB stock for at least five years; and the QSB issuing the stock must devote more than 80% of its assets toward the operation or one or more QTBs.

The Tennessee Income Tax Non-Grantor Trust Strategy

Most states conform to the QSB stock exclusion and also exclude capital gains tax on QSB stock when sold as required in IRC § 1202. The exceptions are California, Mississippi, Alabama, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Puerto Rico, Hawaii and Massachusetts. If you live in one of those states, you may want to consider a concurrent trust strategy described below to eliminate all capital gains taxes on the sale of QSB stock. But even in conforming states, the QSB shareholder can claim additional exclusions greater than the $10 million exclusion limitation by gifting into multiple trusts so all the possible gain from the sale is excluded.

Shareholders living in a nonconforming state or expecting an aggregate capital gain much greater than the $10 million cap may use a Tennessee Income Non-Grantor Trust (TING) to eliminate all federal and state taxation on the sale of the QSB stock gifted to the TING prior to an agreement to sell. Tennessee law enables a person who owns a highly appreciated asset, like QSB stock, to reduce or eliminate his resident state capital gains taxes on the sale of the QSB stock through a TING. While several other states also have laws that support this strategy, Tennessee legislators have adopted the best parts of other states’ laws. To be clear, a taxpayer already living in a state with no state income tax may use resident state trusts to spread the capital gain resulting from the sale of QSB Stock.

The grantor will gift the QSB stock to one or more TINGs (a gift of QSB stock is an exception to the original issue rule under IRC § 1202 (h)(2) and the five-year holding period is not interrupted by a gift to a trust under IRC § 1202 (h)(1)). The trustee may then sell the QSB stock in a manner that allows treatment as a long-term capital gain. If the TING makes no distributions in the tax year in which the QSB stock meeting all the requirements is sold, the sale will be excluded from federal and state capital gain recognition.

The Sourced Income Rule Affecting Trust Taxation

The client’s resident state may seek to tax at least some of the income of a nonresident TING if the client’s resident state has a close interest in the trust’s assets, such as through real property located in or a business operating in that state. This is known as the Sourced Income Rule. Some states think they have a sufficient connection to levy a tax on a nonresident trust simply because the settlor or a beneficiary of the trust lives in that state, or the trustee has an office in that state. That broad application of the definition of a resident trust may be misplaced, but many of our clients want to avoid any expense from litigating against a state taxing authority.

However, if the tax savings are substantial, then a client considering a TING should be aware that the Supreme Court has unanimously ruled that the state of North Carolina overstepped its taxing authority when it sought to tax trust income based solely on the residence of a trust beneficiary. North Carolina argued that its taxing authority included any trust income that “is for the benefit of” a state resident. The Supreme Court disagreed and ruled in the case of North Carolina Department of Revenue v. The Kimberley Rice Kaestner 1992 Family Trust “that the presence of in-state beneficiaries alone does not empower a state to tax trust income that has not been distributed to the beneficiaries where the beneficiaries have no right to demand that income and are uncertain ever to receive it.” This ruling may serve to restrain other state taxing authorities from applying an overly broad application of their resident trust rule.

Both of these strategies used together can be highly beneficial for a QSB shareholder living in a QSB nonconforming state or one who expects the total capital gain from a sale to exceed the $10 million cap on a QSB capital gain exclusion. However, these strategies also require that the QSB management and the QSB shareholder plan many years ahead of any contemplated sale.