Legal Advice For Mergers And Acquisitions
For many businesses, a good option for growth is a merger or acquisition. This can be a means of easily expanding your market or your market share, and may be done by buying a complete business or perhaps a specific geographic outlet.
Decades Of Legal Experience
Our attorney at Gordon & Alvestad, PLLC, helps individuals, investors and shareholders deal with complex issues encompassed with buying a business. With more than 40 years of legal experience, Paul Alvestad can provide the knowledgeable counsel you need when investigating the potential purchase or sale of a business.
We Can Help With The Purchase And Sale Of Businesses
We work with businesses and their owners in the Gig Harbor and Tacoma area who are involved in a wide range of business law issues, including:
- Buy/sell agreements and commercial purchase contracts
- Business restructuring
- Capital acquisition and financing
- Drafting, review and negotiation of agreements
- Shareholder agreements
- Partnership agreements
- Employment agreements
- Commercial real estate purchases
- Zoning and land use
- Permits and regulations
- Exit strategies and buyouts
Our Success Is Your Success
As a lifelong resident and attorney practicing in this area, Paul Alvestad has a deep understanding of the real-world issues affecting business owners. He can recommend and help you meet with advisers in finance and accounting side of these transactions, and assist with dealings and approvals of local municipalities to help close deals efficiently and cost-effectively.
Answers To Common Questions About Mergers and Acquisitions
Trustworthy business counsel is key to completing a business purchase or sale. Attorney Alvestad has answered three common questions asked by Washington state business owners about mergers and acquisitions.
What legal issues are involved in a merger or acquisition?
When you merge two companies or buy a business, you are doing more than just signing a bill of sale. You are dealing with complex rules about how employees are treated and how the government monitors competition.
In Washington, a major change for 2026 involves noncompete agreements. Under new state laws, most agreements that stop employees from working for a competitor are becoming unenforceable. Additionally, if you are in the health care or tech industries, you may have to give the Washington Attorney General a 60-day heads-up before you can legally close the deal.
Why is tax planning important in M&A deals?
Washington state now has a Capital Gains Tax that hits business owners when they sell their company. At this point, you generally pay 7% on the first $1 million in profit and 9.9% on everything above that. However, there is a special “family business” exemption. If you have owned your business for five years and your family runs it, you might be able to skip this tax entirely. A lawyer helps you structure the sale – for example, deciding whether to sell the “assets” (like equipment and names) or the “stock” (the whole legal entity) – to make sure you qualify for the lowest possible tax rate.
How can an attorney help during due diligence?
Due diligence is like a “home inspection” for a business. An attorney looks deep into the company’s history to make sure there are no hidden traps. In Washington, one of the biggest traps is successor liability, in which the buyer can be forced to pay the seller’s unpaid business taxes (B&O tax) even if the buyer didn’t cause the debt. An attorney protects you by making sure the seller gets a “Certificate of Payment” from the Department of Revenue.
We also look at “de facto merger” risks, which is when a court decides that even though you only bought the assets, you are legally responsible for all the old company’s lawsuits and debts.
Contact Us Today!
Our lawyer can help you with all aspects of purchasing or selling a business in the Tacoma area and throughout Washington. Use our online contact form or call our Gig Harbor office at 253-666-9219 to schedule an appointment today.
