The Small Business Administration (SBA) has proposed new guidelines that would place a cap of $250,000 on the value attributed to goodwill. This proposed amendment has caused quite a stir amongst the lending professionals, the business brokering community, business appraisers and business owners.

With intangibles as the primary driver of business value in today’s economy, perhaps the proposed guidelines will require appraisers to specifically identify intangible assets with any residual or unidentified portion allocated to goodwill.

Specifically identified intangibles would include:

• Trademarks
• Internet Domain Names
• Customer Lists
• Order backlogs
• Customer contracts
• Noncontractual customer relationships
• Lease agreements
• Databases
• Trade Secrets