Here we will take a look at five situations where an additional business structure could be helpful. Take note if any of the below situations apply to you.
-
- My new venture will bring in valuable assets such as processing equipment.
If the new venture involves new and valuable assets, creating a separate business structure can help protect those assets from liability. By creating a separate structure, only the assets in the new business enterprise will be available to satisfy the liabilities that accrue to the new business structure. Of course, we always want insurance as our first line of defense, but a second business structure can be a good secondary line of defense to limit the assets available to that specific venture.
-
- I am bringing in business partners or investors to support my new business venture.
Bringing in new and different business partners or investors can introduce new dynamics, and you may want new rules that shape how the new venture makes important decisions and governs itself. You can manage the risk of disputes and promote good communication, as well as clear roles and responsibilities by creating a separate entity for the non-agricultural venture with its own governance document that addresses how big decisions are made.
-
- My new venture will expose my business to different or greater liability risks than it has previously experienced.
Does your new venture involve new practices, equipment, or potentially hazardous situations? For example, adding a forestry business to your farm that involves chainsaw work and tree-felling, or adding value-added foods that come with food safety hazards. Both add new, different, and greater risks to the current operation. By creating a separate business structure, we can separate the new venture’s liabilities from the existing business. That way, the increased risks of the new venture don’t put the assets of the existing business at increased risk.
-
- My new venture will be non-agricultural, such as a cidery or restaurant, where the primary labor performed by workers will be something other than the cultivation of soil and raising/harvesting of agricultural crops and livestock.
Many new agritourism, educational, and processing ventures involve non-agricultural employment. The distinction between agricultural and non-agricultural employment can be complex and nuanced, and any farmer planning a new venture will need to explore their new employment law obligations. If the new venture involves non-agricultural labor, it can be beneficial to create a separate entity, because it allows us to be very clear about for which one a person is working, including clocking in and clocking out and issuing separate paychecks for each entity. With clearly separate entities, we may be able to follow agricultural employment rules for one and non-agricultural employment rules for the other.
-
- I anticipate my farm or ranch business and my non-agricultural business venture may be owned and operated by separate people in the future.
If your business transition dreams involve different people taking over unique parts of the business, it could be beneficial to create separate business entities now, each with their own governance documents that address how partners enter and exit the business. This may make it easier to craft clear, separate succession plans when the time comes.
If one or more of the situations above applies to you, it is worth seriously weighing the costs and benefits of forming an additional business structure. We will do that in the next section. If none of the scenarios above apply to you, an additional business structure may not be worth the time or money for you right now. But there are still things you can do to improve your legal resilience as you move forward with your exciting business ideas. Move ahead to the section, “Consider Alternatives” to learn more.