What’s the right structure for my business? Is my current structure costing me? Would another structure suit my needs better?

When clients come to us, these are often the first questions they ask.

In this video, discover the key factors to consider when choosing the right business structure. Whether you’re starting out or in growth phase, learn how the wrong structure could be costing you money and hindering your business potential.

Principal, Chris Mullins, explains why selecting the appropriate structure is crucial for your business and how it can unlock untapped potential.

Please contact us if you would like advice about the best structure for your business. 

Video transcript

Chris Mullins:

Hi, everyone. What’s the right business structure for my business? When clients come to us, that’s often the first question they want asked. They want to know what structure is going to work right for their next business venture.

There’s essentially five different types of structures. There’s a sole trader, a partnership, a discretionary trust, or a family trust, a fixed trust, and a company. But what if I’m in the wrong structure? What happens if the structure that I was put in initially either is the wrong structure or it’s gone past its useful life?

For example, a client may have operated through a discretionary trust for many, many years, but they come to the point in their business where they’re thinking about succession planning, and they want to move from their current structure, which is a discretionary trust, but they want to think about bringing on a new equity partner. It may be at a key employee, or it may be somebody who’s shown interest in their business, but they want the existing partner to stay on.

The family trust structure is not going to be appropriate in that situation, so we need to think about how we move that client to a new business structure, but we also want to make sure that we’re not going to trigger any adverse tax implications. There’s lots of things to consider. We need to think about contracts moving them from one structure to the next structure. We also need to think about employees and moving them across as well. Each structure comes with different complexities and clients need to be aware of how these complexities impact them.

My name is Chris Mullins from O’Brien Accountants and Advisors. We’re here to help you. Give us a call if you’ve got any questions on your existing structure, or whether you think you might move to a new structure, and we’re here to help. Thanks very much.