All About Estates

Category: Business Succession Planning

Total 51 Posts

Option to Purchase – At What Price?

Court of Appeal interpreted an option to purchase a business set out in the deceased’s last will.

Continue Reading

Transferring Wealth During Your Lifetime

I was reading recently that approximately $30-trillion in assets will be shifting from one generation to the next across North America in the next few decades, according to consulting firm Accenture. A couple of years ago, I wrote about gifting cash or assets during one’s lifetime as an alternative method…

Continue Reading

AGREEMENT RECTIFICATION APPLIED FOR AND ALLOWED!

Due in particular to the outcome of some recent court cases, many have feared that formal applications to rectify plans would receive a favorable hearing only in the event of obvious clerical errors in the documentation. However a recent court case in the Supreme Court of British Columbia demonstrated that…

Continue Reading

SHAREHOLDERS AGREEMENTS, EXIT PROVISIONS AND THE IMPACT OF CONTROL

Control is an important concept for applying certain income tax rules and valuation issues (amongst others) when dealing with corporations, with serious implications to current and future (and estate) planning scenarios. De jure control refers to legal control of a corporation, which requires a look at shareholdings. Control in fact,…

Continue Reading

Individual Pension Plans Revisited (Again) – What about Pension Transfers?

When a member of an employer sponsored pension plan ceases employment, the member may receive a lump sum payment for the commuted value of their pension rights, exposing that member to a significant tax bill, as only a limited amount of the payment can be transferred to an RRSP. There…

Continue Reading

Fair Market Value Used to Test the Meaning of All or Substantially All of the Assets Used in an Active Business

Under The Income Tax Act (“ITA”), if a taxpayer disposes of property that is all or substantially all of the assets used in an active business for consideration that includes shares of a corporation, the shares are deemed to be capital property. The disposal is considered to be a capital…

Continue Reading

Business Succession Planning and the Next Generation

All business owners face the task of trying to determine what to do with their businesses when they retire or in the event of a sudden death: sell to the next generation, sell to a 3rd party or sell the assets and wind-up the business. According to the Canadian Federation…

Continue Reading

Safe Space: Governance in Action

For most businesses they evaluate their success by quarters or perhaps terms described as “short”, “medium” and “long”. For a family business, they measure success by ensuring the company is preserved for the next generation and beyond.  And despite the statistics which suggest that successfully transitioning a family business to…

Continue Reading

Trust Allocations and Gifts to Family Members

A common estate planning technique is to structure a family trust which owns the shares of a small business corporation in such a way that allows each beneficiary (most commonly being members of the taxpayer’s immediate family – spouse and/or children) to participate in the sale or disposition of the…

Continue Reading

Enhancing the Succession Process – Engaging a Family Business Facilitator

In my last blog I spoke about one of the biggest risks to the successful transition of a family business – poor communication among family members. Related to this is family dynamics.  It is often thought that one of the best ways to address this risk, is to involve the…

Continue Reading