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At the Western Landowners Alliance Legacy on the Land event, Howard Weiss from the US Trust broke down succession planning and governance to their component parts.Succession planning has many elements. Expressed as a formula, succession planning = farm and ranch management + ownership transition + estate planning.
The Western Landowners Alliance Legacy on the Land event featured presentations regarding private operating foundations as a means of land succession planning. A private operating foundation is a legal entity structure in which the foundation spends 85 percent of the lesser of its adjusted net income or minimum investment return is used directly for its exempt activities.
According to the United States Department of Agriculture census data, the average age of farmers and ranchers exceeded 58 years of age for the first time in 2012. Succession planning is one of the aspects of aging land operators and properties nearing transition.
