‘After tax dollars’ are far more important than ‘the price’ and thus how intelligently and creatively a transaction is structured for tax purposes is of major importance. The intelligent and creative aspect is to understand that BOTH the buyer and seller want good tax structuring and in many, if not most, situations it is possible to create ‘win-win’ situations.
While neither Buyer nor Seller should pay exorbitant legal fees to get good legal documents there are ways of getting not only good legal documents but getting them on a cost effective basis. Why do you need good documents? Because if there are claims or lawsuits after the Date of Closing forget about ‘he said, she said’, verbal agreements, etc., as State law and the legal documents will control the outcome — and therefore you want legal documents that you can clearly understand and that can maximize your protection from future claims.
We are neither tax advisors nor lawyers, however, in having handled hundreds of transactions we are in a good position to express opinions and ideas on these issues that we then require our clients to verify with their independent tax and legal counsel before acting on them.