Family Limited Partnerships (FLPs) and Family Limited Liability Companies (FLLCs) are estate planning tools which have been used by tax attorneys and estate planners to lessen the tax exposure of high income married couples.
These tools are significantly different from Relationship LLCs (which are intended to be new startup businesses for generating income). The FLPs and FLLCs involve having the members/partners transfer significant assets to these family business structures, a practice which we do not recommend for Relationship LLCs.
There are complex tax and legal issues related to assets of married couples with children and their being in a partnership or LLC together, this is why most authorities argue that an attorney is needed to create a Family Limited Partnership or a Family LLC. Further, it may cost thousands of dollars to have such business entities created properly.
On the other hand, a Relationship LLC is simply a startup with only "seed" funds invested in it. A Relationship LLC is much simpler than a FLLC and in the event the RLLC is dissolved, only the "seed" money is "at risk". Many people create startup businesses without an attorney.
The terms "Family Limited Partnerships", "FLPs", "Family Limited Liability Companies" and "FLLCs" have been used for many years by tax attorneys and estate planners and are believed by us to be public domain (we have, however, copyrighted material using these terms). We are building a web site devoted to married couples who remain interested in FLLCs and FLPs, the site is FLLC.NET (TM).
