Your responsibilities as a trustee or executor of an estate may include completing the tax filings of the deceased and requesting tax clearance prior to the distribution of the estate in accordance with the will terms. Let’s say you find out that the deceased’s tax filings were not all up to date or incomplete and you have read about the possibility of tax penalties.
Month: July 2011
In the years that I have been practicing I’ve come to realize the importance of having a team approach to addressing a client’s estate plan. Whether the team includes the accountant, who suggests an ‘estate freeze’, the insurance advisor who considers the extent and type of insurance needed to best fulfill the client’s goals, the investment advisor who works to achieve both the client’s retirement and legacy goals or other lawyers who are involved in the client’s legal affairs, all the advisors have a role to play in ensuring the client’s estate play is properly implemented. No where is the team approach perhaps more paramount than when the areas of family and estate law intersect.
Seniors have saved for the rainy day, but often they don’t recognize that it is pouring outside.
Throughout history people have written their wills in very interesting places.
I have encountered parents who are extremely worried about their challenged children’s financial well bein on theri death…isn’t it more effective to raise this issue now?
Yesterday, the Ontario Court of Appeal released its decision in Robinson Estate. The decision acknowledged the trend in Canadian jurisprudence towards admitting extrinsic evidence of the testator’s circumstances and those surrounding the making of the will. However, the Court found that it was not open to the application judge to determine Blanca’s intention based on evidence from third parties about her testamentary intentions.
In my last blog, I wrote about how you might consider refreezing your existing freeze shares if the enterprise has recently declined in value, so that your chosen successors can participate sooner in the future growth of your enterprise and in the meantime your tax liability can be reduced on the disposition of those shares by you or your estate. Today I would like to write about how you might accomplish a refreeze and provide you with a few words of caution.
The small business owner’s choice of estate trustees is very important to the successful administration of his or her estate and succession of his or her small business. Many factors should be considered when such a choice is being made.
Do you know where your grandchildren are? When families don’t talk- what happens to the grandchildren?