Estate Liquidity and the Family-Owned Business

Every community in the country has its quota of successful merchants, manufacturers and businessmen whose enterprises have, as a result of management or planning, grown and prospered over the years. To value the worth of such businesses for estate tax purposes is perhaps the most difficult fact-issue in the whole field of taxation. Indeed it is doubtful if there is any problem in law or economics where the criteria are so vague and uncertain and where the permissible range for honest differences of judgment is so great. Expert opinion may vary by more than 100%.