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Business valuations in Massachusetts for donations, M&A, gift tax, and IRA conversion, prepared in accordance with USPAP and IRS requirements. AppraiseItNow appraises small businesses, partnerships, corporations, professional practices, and franchises across Massachusetts, including Boston, Worcester, and Springfield.
DEFENSIBLE, USPAP-COMPLIANT BUSINESS APPRAISAL REPORTS — QUALIFIED FOR THE IRS, MASSACHUSETTS COURTS, LENDERS, INSURERS, AND MORE.
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Owner & CEO
Joe founded AppraiseItNow to make a certified, USPAP-compliant appraisal as simple to order as anything else online. A former Bain & Company strategy consultant, Joe leads the entire team and specializes in strategy, growth, and the firm's tech capabilities.
Business Valuation Expert & Appraiser
ASA, ABV, and CFA charterholder. Since 2016 Justin has valued businesses for estate and gift tax, purchase price allocations, fairness opinions, lending, and buy-sell agreements, across manufacturing, services, retail, and pre-revenue biotech.
Business Valuation Expert & Appraiser
Accredited Senior Appraiser with the American Society of Appraisers. Raymond values capital stock, business enterprises, stock options, and intangible assets.
Client Success Manager
Manages each engagement from the first enquiry to the delivered report, and keeps you posted at every step along the way.
American Society of AppraisersAccredited Senior Appraiser
The Appraisal FoundationAuthorized by Congress as the source of appraisal standardsTwo Massachusetts engagements, a line each. What the company is called, what it was worth, and when, stay in the report.
Estate tax
An operating company valued as of the owner's date of death, from its own statements and the market for comparable businesses, for the estate's federal and state returns.
Owner planning
A privately held Boston company valued for the owner's planning, read from its statements, its agreements, and completed sales of comparable businesses.
AppraiseItNow appraises privately held Massachusetts businesses, from single owner practices to family corporations several generations in, along with the partial blocks inside them. The work comes from estate and gift returns, charitable gifts of stock, owner exits, divorce, and self directed retirement accounts holding a share of a company. Every engagement is prepared remotely, from records already in hand.
Estate and gift filings
The relevant company is the one that existed on the date of the gift or the death, so the analysis runs on the records as they stood then and on the agreements in force then. A conclusion reached that way is still answerable years later, when somebody reads the return again.
Buyouts and dissent
A shareholder exercising appraisal rights and a partner leaving under a buy sell agreement are owed numbers computed on different terms. We value to whichever one governs, and name the other so nobody mistakes it for the same figure.
Practices and holding entities
In a medical or dental practice, much of the balance sheet is hardware, and the operation and the hardware are not the same question. The imaging and treatment assets are valued as Massachusetts medical equipment, then read back into the conclusion for the practice.
Two owners can hold the same percentage of the same Massachusetts company and still be owed different numbers. What separates them is what the documents let each one do: force a distribution, block a sale, or get out at a stated price.
Rights in the documents
The agreement answers this before any number does. What vote carries a decision, whether distributions have ever actually been paid, what a holder may sell and to whom, and whether one family member already decides everything.
What the entity holds
A holding company is only as solid as the evidence under its assets. Listed securities price themselves, while real property and equipment need support of their own, and no conclusion about the interest can be firmer than the thinnest support beneath them.
Two Massachusetts statutes set the date and the clock when an owner is bought out, and a third rule changes what the company's earnings look like on paper.
Deadline
40 to 60 days
the window the appraisal notice must give for the form to come back
Where a corporate action triggers appraisal rights, the corporation sends an appraisal notice and a form no earlier than the date the action became effective and no later than 10 days after it. The form specifies the date of the first announcement to shareholders of the action's principal terms and requires the shareholder to certify whether beneficial ownership was acquired before that date. The notice names the date by which the form has to be received, which may be no fewer than 40 nor more than 60 days after it is sent, and a shareholder whose form arrives late waives appraisal.
It must also carry the corporation's own estimate of the fair value of the shares, so a figure is on the table before the shareholder answers. The dates then do the rest of the work: when the terms were announced, when the shares were acquired, and when the form comes back.
Valuation date
Immediately before
the effective date of the corporate action is when the shares are measured
For shares being appraised, fair value is the value of those shares immediately before the effective date of the corporate action the shareholder objects to, excluding any element of value arising from the expectation or accomplishment of the proposed action, unless excluding it would be inequitable. Interest then runs from that effective date until payment.
That makes the assignment a retrospective one and rules out the easiest shortcut available, which is the price the transaction itself put on the company. The section says nothing at all about discounts for lack of marketability or minority status, so what a Massachusetts conclusion does with those has to be argued from the record rather than read off the statute.
Inside the earnings
5%
excise on the qualified income of an electing entity, in addition to its other taxes
An S corporation, a partnership, or an LLC treated as either may elect to pay an excise of 5% on its qualified income taxable in Massachusetts. The excise is in addition to the taxes the entity and its owners already owe, and each qualified member then takes a refundable credit equal to their share of what the entity paid multiplied by 0.9. The election is annual, binds every member, and cannot be revoked once made for that year, and the chapter does not apply at all in a year when the federal limit on the state and local tax deduction is not in effect.
The practical effect for a valuation is an entity level tax that can be in one year's statements and out of the next. Which years carry it, and whether a hypothetical buyer would keep making the election, are questions the conclusion has to answer rather than assume.
What clients say we are known for
Across 80+ published AppraiseItNow reviews the picture is consistent: every one is from a client who paid us for an appraisal, and the three things they raise most often are that they would hire us again, how quickly we answer, and how much research is visible in the report.
Responsive, professional, first class deliverables -- especially considering that that the appraised assets are extremely complex financial assets with little by way of comps. The deliverable satisfied my accountants and advisers as being more than adequate to support the valuation needed to complete a conversion to a Roth IRA
Business Valuation Appraisal for IRA Conversion
Joe and Aron were extremely impressive - the entire process went very smoothly. They were always quick to respond to any questions I had and could not have been more helpful. They were aware of some tight time restrictions I had and made sure I received my reports in a timely fashion. I highly recommend them to anyone needing a valuation.
Business Valuation Appraisal for Charitable Donation
I used AppraiseItNow to examine a contribution to a foundation. Their work was quick, thorough, and easy to work with, as they’ve developed a simple system for uploading documents. I plan to use them again.
Business Valuation Appraisal for Charitable Donation
The team was highly knowledgeable, helpful, and efficient. I highly recommend their appraisal services, especially for private companies.
Business Valuation Appraisal for IRA Conversion
I found them professional & responsive. The report was quite thorough as well.
Business Valuation Appraisal for Charitable Donation
From the start they were very responsive, price competitive, and had a quick turn around time. Thank you so much to Joe who was very sweet in responding to my emails; I am looking forward to utilizing AppraiseItNow for many years to come.
Given the USPAP-compliant nature of AppraiseItNow’s appraisal reports, we prepare our deliverables for major legal, tax, and financial reporting purposes for individual and commercial clients.
Popular uses of our appraisal reports include:
The standard of value, the premise of value, the effective date, the exact interest being valued, and every key assumption and information source. Professional standards from USPAP, the AICPA, ASA, and NACVA all require these elements, and their absence is the fastest way for a report to fail scrutiny.
No. Fair market value assumes a hypothetical willing buyer and seller with no compulsion, while investment value reflects what a particular buyer would pay including synergies. Conflating the two is a frequent owner error, and the right basis depends on why the valuation is being prepared.
Yes. Business interests are part of the gross estate, and Massachusetts imposes its estate tax once the gross estate exceeds $2 million, well below the federal threshold. Many owners whose estates would owe nothing federally still need a defensible business valuation for the Massachusetts filing.
Under equitable distribution: the business interest is valued and divided fairly based on statutory factors, not split mechanically in half. Courts frequently value marital assets at current fair market value near the time of trial, so the valuation date should be chosen with counsel and stated in the report.
