Estate Planning for Alabama Pharmacy Owners

By Brad MacLiver
Authorship and profile at Google


Many ALabama (AL) pharmacy owners are experiencing lower profit margins and have considered selling due to current market conditions. The pharmacy industry has been experiencing a roll-up for a number of years, which has been consolidating the pharmacy seller's customer traffic into less pharmacy locations. Regardless, there are a number of pharmacies in Alabama that are not located geographically with other nearby pharmacies, so no consolidation is taking place. A number of pharmacy and drug store owners, despite their location or what is happening in the industry, are taking a stance and won’t consider selling. However, just like taxes, the business will inevitably need an exit.

Estate Planning is something many people in all industries tend to shy away from. For the Alabama pharmacy owner who works six days a week, rarely takes vacations, fills scripts all day long, mops the floor, and then does the books at night, there usually isn’t much spare time to consider things such as estate planning. However, keeping in mind that there will eventually be a transfer of the business, it is important for the pharmacy owner to consider a proper plan of succession for the pharmacy business.

Developing a plan to transfer the business will be time consuming, but done correctly will allow the business to be successfully transferred in an acceptable manner. An estate plan for an Alabama pharmacy owner does not need to be changeless process. Fine-tuning, updating, and amendments are recommended as government regulations, economic conditions, and personal expectations change.

Estate planning allows a pharmacy owner to anticipate and arrange for the transfer of the drug store. The plan will be formatted in attempts to eliminate uncertainties, assist the transfer by trimming expenses, and reduce taxes.

The process may involve Trusts, Wills, Living Wills, Power of Attorney, Medical Power of Attorney, Business Valuations, Life Insurance, Charitable Remainder Trusts, Buy-Sell Agreements, and other legal documents. All of the different aspects of the estate planning are to provide the AL pharmacy owners coordinated directives.

When there are non-family members as partners in the drug store business, it is essential that the estate planning incorporate a Buy-Sell Agreement. A buy-sell agreement, governs the transfer of the business between pharmacy partners. The agreement may also be known as a partner buyout agreement, or a business will. To help protect the family in the event of a partner’s death, the buy-sell agreement may be funded with a life insurance policy.

Estate planning, buy-sell agreements, and the transfer of the Alabama pharmacy should incorporate a pharmacy business valuation completed by a third party that has expertise in the pharmacy industry, performs a large number of pharmacy business valuations each year, and has current industry data as a basis for the conclusions. Using simple accounting formulas, multipliers, and valuators inexperienced in pharmacy will not provide an accurate business valuation.

Most pharmacy owners in Alabama spend a major part of their life building the business. The efforts should not disappear because the pharmacy owner refuses to accept their mortality and plan accordingly. The only pharmacist in some small pharmacies is the owner. If the scripts can’t be filled by a licensed pharmacist then by law the customer files must be transferred to another pharmacy. Due to this, a pharmacy’s business value may drop to a negligible figure in just a few days after the passing of the owner. Contingencies outlined in an estate plan should address this issue. Unfortunately due to not having an effective plan in place, each year a number of pharmacy owners in Alabama die and their family is left with an asset with very little value.

Tips:        
1. When the family drug store is the sole means of income for several family members it becomes even more crucial to have a succession plan in place.
2. To avoid disputes, estate plans should be developed with clear directives.
3. Minimizing tax liabilities is a major objective for most completing an estate plan, therefore expert tax advice should be sought.
4. Many on-line documents and books are available that provide advice and documents for developing an estate plan. When going the self-help route, it is advisable to have a paid expert review the completed documentation to ensure that it can be legally complied with when the time comes.
5. While developing the estate plan it is essential to talk with children and other family members of the AL pharmacy owner especially if there are some family that work in the business and others that don’t.