Tax-efficient estate planning for business owners, professionals, and high net worth families — strategies to minimize or defer estate administration tax, capital gains tax, and other taxes. Cross-border considerations for clients with US and international ties.
Estate planning for high net worth clients is less about the will alone and more about how the structures, holdings, and intentions fit together over time. The work involves wills, powers of attorney, family trusts, holding-company structures, life-insurance planning, and the corporate-side reorganizations that often accompany generational wealth transfer. The objective is a coordinated plan that minimizes Canadian estate administration tax (probate tax), defers or reduces capital gains tax, and protects family assets across generations.
The estate practice is concentrated on clients with meaningful business or investment assets — typically business owners, professionals with established practices, or families with significant accumulated wealth. The work is most valuable where the client has structures that can be reorganized for tax purposes (operating company, holding company, real estate, investment portfolios) rather than a simple liquid-asset estate.
Estate planning is most effective when it is integrated with the client's ongoing corporate and tax planning. The boutique structure of the firm allows that integration to happen with a single senior lawyer.
High net worth estate planning is inherently multi-disciplinary. The firm regularly works alongside the client's existing accountant, tax advisor, and (where applicable) US tax counsel — coordinating the legal structures with the tax-planning advice rather than substituting for it.
Most estate-planning engagements are scoped after an initial planning meeting that establishes the family situation, the asset structure, and the planning objectives. Fees are typically fixed or capped, agreed up front. The firm does not provide tax opinions or accounting work; tax structuring advice is coordinated with the client's tax advisors.
For high net worth estate planning involving business interests and tax-deferral structures, the answer is usually both — but they should be coordinated, not separate. The firm provides the legal structuring (wills, trusts, corporate reorganizations, estate freezes) and coordinates with the client's existing accountant and tax advisor on the tax analysis.
Yes — the firm handles the Canadian side of cross-border estate planning, including coordinating with US estate counsel on US estate tax exposure, gift tax, FBAR, FATCA, and Form 3520 considerations. The firm does not give US tax advice itself; that work is done in coordination with US counsel.
In Ontario, estate administration tax (probate tax) applies to assets passing under a will that is submitted for probate. By using two wills — one for assets requiring probate, and a second for assets like private-company shares that do not require probate — Ontario clients can reduce estate administration tax. The strategy needs to be drafted carefully to be effective; a generic 'second will' does not work.
Yes — and the work is typically better when the legal and tax sides are coordinated. The firm regularly works alongside clients' existing accountants and tax advisors on multi-disciplinary estate planning.
A senior lawyer working alongside your accountant and tax advisor, on a known fee. Initial planning meetings are short and no-cost.
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