Frequently I hear from people who want to gift away their assets while they’re alive in order “to save taxes” and “make sure the government doesn’t take it all.” Unfortunately though, many of these people are following coffee shop advice from outdated sources or uninformed friends.

The reality is that the majority of people are better off not making gifts during their lifetime and passing assets to their children upon their death. Why, you ask? It's because of what's known as the "Step Up Basis" vs the "Carryover Basis." I'll give you an example.

Today marks Gutwein Law's fifth birthday, and we couldn't be more excited! It's been an unbelievable five years and we're incredibly happy to reflect on the ways we've grown. To help us celebrate this milestone, we wanted to take a look back at where we've been in the past five years, and where we heading in the next five.

So, why'd we start Gutwein Law? Well, as we always say, our firm exists for one reason – to help the best, most forward-thinking businesses in the world grow through high-level legal counsel. When we founded our firm, we knew right away we had a different perspective. As you may already know, we not only practice law on a daily basis, but business, too. A number of firm's team members own businesses themselves, so we know first-hand what our clients are after (sometimes before they do). We believe this approach, along with our other ideals, has strongly contributed to our success over the past five years.

At Gutwein Law, we understand navigating tax credits can be difficult. So, we've put together a list of tax credits for Midwestern states to help you get started. In today's blog post, we'll explore Minnesota, home to our first out-of-state office.

The number of minor league and team acquisitions and divestitures are on the rise throughout the United States. The cause? It can mostly be attributed to the growth of summer collegiate sports, new sports (such as Ultimate Disc, eSports, etc.), and the continual transition of mom-and-pop businesses being acquired by larger portfolios. But this recent trend is causing some unique hurdles in sports business.

Unlike purchasing a business in the open market, there's one more layer of bureaucracy to overcome in a sports. That extra layer is the league’s approval or disapproval of a new buyer (i.e., the Miami Marlins acquisition attempts). Sports team purchases come with great uncertainty as closing can't occur until the league approves its new "partner." And this process can be quite complicated depending on the league. So, below we've outlined the typical considerations and steps during the purchasing process in order to help leagues and buyers ensure their acquisition or divestiture deals go as smoothly as possible. This information comes from years as a sports executive, owner, lawyer, and now league commissioner.

A client contacted us and asked: “What is a family foundation, and should I have one?” This isn't the first time the question has come up, so I wanted to share our answer.

A family foundation is a way to obtain a charitable income tax deduction today while distributing the money to charities in the future.  It is a not-for-profit organization that holds funds and then disburses those funds to charitable organizations.  They are recognized as 501(c)(3) organizations and the person contributing to the foundation is allowed a charitable deduction when the property is transferred into the foundation.  (There are limits on the amount that can be deducted.)   So, someone puts their money into the foundation, and then the foundation distributes it to charities.

Should you have one?  It depends.