Really going out on a limb here....

[oceanfamily]

We are very private about money matters so to to be on here is a little scary for us. We thought about going to a financial advisor but we have no connections in that regard so just picking one out of the yellow pages just doesn't seem right. So I will share the situation and see what you may have to say.

We run a commercial fishing boat. It is owned by dad who is getting up in years unfortunately:( We have an understanding that we can run the boat just so long as we take care of all the expenses: repairs, crew, insurance, gas storage, well you get the picture. So, recently we were told by dad that it's basically our boat but to make it official we have to obviously do paperwork. Dad wants to "gift" us the boat but sell the corporation to us for basically what he paid for the boat years ago. He wants to do this to avoid getting taxed up the yeehoo. Totally understandable~ but then if we do that we have no basis for depreciation for our taxes. We all agree that we could pay this over a period of x amount of years, but yet wouldn't be able to right it off at tax time with the way dad wants to do it. Mind you that we have already paid x amount of dollars in our early days of running the boat to dad but still had all the responsabilites of everything listed above. Does anyone have any suggestions as to what we should do?

[Bronxboy]

We are very private about money matters so to to be on here is a little scary for us. We thought about going to a financial advisor but we have no connections in that regard so just picking one out of the yellow pages just doesn't seem right.

This sounds like one of those cases where the two of you actually DO need a financial adviser.

First question is whether the boat is an personal asset of your father, or an asset of the corporation.

[cattledog]

Your best bet is probably a CPA firm. Most firms have small business consultants that can guide you through all the tax issues.

[fidgiegirl]

Welcome to the boards! I would echo above.

Hope you will be back soon . . .

[Gregg]

Agree with the CPA idea. If you're running a business it is a good idea to start a relationship with a CPA anyway. There are going to be a few options of how to do this with some having more benefits under the current tax codes than others. A CPA will be able to basically make two columns (or 3 or 4...) listing the flow of money in each in the form of credits and debits. They will be helping you find the answers to all the if/then questions. At the end of the exercise one column will have a bigger number than the others. That bigger number will represent more money you get to keep in your pocket. In most cases that makes it pretty easy to decide how to proceed. Talk to your friends, family, other people with similar businesses, etc. to get some names of who they use for an accountant. That's a lot less blind than the yellow pages.