Personal Tax
Our lawyers help individuals, families and family-owned businesses effectively plan tax strategies to achieve their financial goals in a tax-efficient manner.
Typical of the issues on which we advise are:
- Dealing with Canada’s high taxes through wealth preservation programs that incorporate thorough analysis of each individual’s financial affairs and testamentary wishes to create tax and estate plans that minimize taxes before and after death and develop means to fund taxes that cannot be avoided.
- Designing family trusts that permit family members to enjoy the grantor’s assets while preserving the grantor’s control and reducing taxes and other costs during and after the grantor’s lifetime.
- Structuring charitable gifts in ways that realize the donor’s intentions while creating significant tax advantages.
- Proposing careful use of offshore tax structures as part of an overall offshore tax strategy.
- Developing management planning and asset preservation approaches for private and family owned businesses that address:
- Analyzing business structure as the foundation for practical tax planning;
- Minimizing taxes on current business income;
- Preparing the means to pay taxes due on the retirement or death of the business owner;
- Identifying management succession contingencies in the event of retirement, illness, injury or death of the business owner;
- Creating estate plans, including the establishment of trusts, that transfer family businesses on a tax-deferred basis to children while preserving the owner's ability to manage and control the business; and
- Formalizing all arrangements among business partners.
