Our Services
Taxation
Our firm provides strategic tax planning and compliance to minimize liability and align with the client’s personal and business financial goals. We believe that no tax advice is good in theory only. Thus, we focus on the practical application of the tax code, and in so doing, we bring substantial experience to tax planning, as well as tax compliance, for individuals, corporations, partnerships, trusts, estates, and non-profits. Our tax compliance services provide opportunity for current and future tax planning. We also are substantially engaged in Section 1031 Like-Kind Deferred Exchanges, and we handle the most direct exchanges to complex reverse build to suit exchanges, in both the legal and tax advisor role as well as that of the Qualified Intermediary.
TRANSACTION & BUSINESS ADVISORY SERVICES
No two transactions are the same, and each buyer and seller has their own definition of success. But our approach to every transaction is the same. We bring guidance to the essential process of identifying and analyzing financial, operational, tax, regulatory, and other related risks and opportunities to ensure legal clarity, risk mitigation, and value at every stage from planning to execution. By having a thorough understanding of the client, their business and the facts involved, through detailed due diligence in order to meet their goals while mitigating transactional cost, we do not work just for a successful closing, but for the client’s long-term success.
Our firm is extensive experienced, and regularly engages, in such transactional matters as, including but limited to, business formation and structuring, corporate and partnership dissolutions, mergers & acquisitions, taxable and tax-free re-organizations, joint venture, internal buy/sell transactions, deferred compensation planning, benefits planning, ESOPs and exit planning and business succession matters. The Firm’s principal has attained the additional designations of Certified Exit Planning Advisor (CEPA) from the Exit Planning Institute, as well as the Certified Merger & Acquisition Advisor (CMA&A) from the Alliance of Merger & Acquisition Advisors.
Exit Planning
Being a business owner has both pros and cons. But one thing is for certain: a business owner does not mean merely being your own boss. It is a lifestyle, and exiting from a business impacts the livelihood that has allowed you to provide for you and your family. Exiting is not a simple concept and taking on such a process without careful consideration can lead to financial, health, and family issues and disputes. More so, we contend that exit planning is not just for when an owner decides to leave a business; it is it is a business plan allowing owners ready for the unexpected every day and should be consider before the owner comes to end of the road in his day-to-day business activies.
Through a deliberate and strategic process, we assist entrepreneurs and business owners to maximize their business value while transition out of their ownership roles, whether that be a sale to a third-party, to an employee purchase, or to an ESOP; a transfer to family member; a transfer involving a charity; or a merger and acquisition with a private equity group or strategic or financial buyer. The Firm’s principal has attained the additional designations of Certified Exit Planning Advisor (CEPA) from the Exit Planning Institute, as well as the Certified Merger & Acquisition Advisor (CMA&A) from the Alliance of Merger & Acquisition Advisors.
Estate Plannnig
Each client’s estate is as unique as the individual client who created by their own works. Our firm is, through it legal and tax knowledge and experience, to assist client protect assets, reduce tax burdens, and ensure their client’s wishes are carried out efficiently, effectively, and clearly. Through the use of wills, trusts, charitable trusts, life insurance trusts, and family limited liability companies and family limited liability partnership, we can assist the client to achieve his or her goals while maintaining family harmony.
“To be successful, you have to have your heart in your business, and your business in your heart.“
Thomas Watson, Sr., former CEO, IBM
About the Firm
Ford Law & Advisory, LLC is a Tax and Transactional Advisory Service firm based out of Columbia, South Carolina. The firm focuses on minimizing federal, state and local tax, and other transactional costs, while helping business owners and individual maximize their wealth and achieving their objectives.
The firm’s principal, David F. Ford II, has over 30 years of experience helping businesses and individuals achieve their goals with minimal tax implications, especially in the areas of tax planning, tax compliance, business formation and structuring, mergers & acquisitions, ESOPs, real estate transactions, compensation matters, benefit planning, and estate planning.
David earned his BS in Accounting from the Darla Moore School of Business at the University of South Carolina in 1990. Following serving as an Auditor for a regional CPA firm, as well as a Trust Auditor for a large national bank, he returned to the University of South Carolina School of Law where he received in his Juris Doctor in 1994. He then earned his LL.M. in Taxation from the Villanova University School of Law in suburban Philadelphia. He also attained the national designations of Certified Exit Planning Advisor (CEPA) and Certified Merger & Acquisition Advisor (CMA&A).
In his spare time, David serves as an assistant varsity basketball coach at Heathwood Hall Episcopal School. His wife is a teacher Heathwood, and his son and daughter are active students and athletes at Heathwood. David is also involved in civic interests in the community.
