On April 11th, 2019, Ontario’s Ford government released its first budget. Of note to estates practitioners, as of January 1, 2020, Estate Administration Tax (commonly referred to as “probate fees”) will not be payable on the first $50,000.00 of an estate’s value. Currently, probate fees are levied at a rate…
Month: April 2019
Total 20 Posts
The 2019 Federal Budget was uneventful in terms of charitable incentives (journalism aside), but there are two proposals that will directly affect giving. The first relates to donations of cultural property – especially art with foreign origins – and the second to employee stock options. The former represents the reinstatement…
Today’s blog was written by Monique J. Charlebois, a bilingual lawyer with more than 20 years of experience practicing Ontario estates law. If you have clients who have lost a relatively young spouse/parent who was the primary caregiver to young children for many years, letting them know about the Child…
Life insurance policy – rollover at cost? In a recent technical interpretation, the Canada Revenue Agency (“CRA”) confirmed that where a spousal trust is required to pay the life insurance premiums on a policy it owns and is the beneficiary of the policy, a rollover at cost pursuant to the…
Thank you Sally Lee for your blog last week titled ‘Pre-arranging for Personal Care’. My colleague has discussed such an important topic and it is one that I feel strongly about. I felt this blog spoke to me directly as a ‘care service provider’ and as a resource to women…
Today’s blog was co-written with Demetre Vasilounis, Student at Law at Fasken LLP. As science’s capability to bend the laws of nature becomes wider and wider, our laws will have to develop ways to tackle the challenges that will inevitably arise from such scientific advancement. One concept which is becoming…
This blog was written by Sally Lee, LLB – Estate and Trust Consultant with Scotia Wealth Management Recently, I met a prospective client (let’s call her Jane) who told me she did not have anyone to appoint as her attorney for personal care. It appeared that this issue was the…
What appellate court is the proper forum for an appeal regarding the payment of an estate trustee during litigation’s fees (an “ETDL”)? In Gefen v. Gaertner, 2019 ONCA 233, the Court of Appeal held it was the Divisional Court and not the Court of Appeal. The Gefen Estate (the “Estate”)…
Without proper tax planning, private company shareholders face the prospect of a double tax on the value of shares – once at the time of death and again when the successor beneficiaries extract the share value from the company. Post mortem “pipeline” planning solves this problem by allowing the estate…
The more people/families I meet, the more I am amazed that there can be so much conflict that continues….. Many estate practices are busy because of familial conflict. We all know families that are not on speaking terms. In most cases, money has something to do with it. I wanted…