Whether charting the course of your business, setting personal goals or mapping the future of your family commitments, securing sound tax advice and comprehensive, results‐oriented representation from a seasoned team of experts is the best way to maximize your opportunities while avoiding pitfalls and also ensuring a smooth transition of your wealth from one generation to the next.
Enlisting the technical proficiency and experienced working knowledge of Gardiner Roberts’ Tax and Estate Planning Group - who are committed to learning your business to better understand your needs - is the first step towards making smart, informed decisions. Take full advantage of the bigger picture afforded by Gardiner Roberts’ Tax and Estate Planning Group - one that opens a door to a broad spectrum of tax and estate issues and insights that can save you time and money while protecting your wealth for generations to come.
When it comes to tax and estate planning, gaining access to specialists with the ability to react and respond effectively to your evolving circumstances is only part of the picture. Our Tax and Estate Planning Group has the depth of expertise to interpret and advise wisely on complex Canadian tax laws, while providing access to the added
benefits of a full‐service, multi‐disciplinary team who specialize in a cross‐section of legal areas including corporate reorganizations, shareholders’ and partnership agreements, CRA disputes, cross‐border transactions, finance, estate and succession planning - as well as a broad range of related business issues and practices.
Our counsel provides clear, concise solutions in non‐technical terms while maximizing every opportunity with the goal of saving you money - reducing taxation while preserving wealth.
Our tax lawyers are skilled in multiple practices and industries including investment funds, capital markets transactions, transfer pricing, structured finance, investment funds, private equity and natural resources. Whether your need encompasses the reduction or elimination of probate fees, minimizing or deferring tax on capital gains or planning ahead for a time when individuals may not be able to take care of themselves or manage their assets, Gardiner Roberts’ Tax and Estate Planning Group apply equal parts expertise and compassion when developing strategies that are tailored to your individual needs.
The lawyers in our Tax and Estate Planning Group provide expertise in the following areas:
Additional Expertise
- Reorganization of corporate structures to minimize income tax, limit exposure of assets to creditors, reduce income tax that would arise on the death of a shareholder and allow for the introduction of new shareholders
- CRA dispute representation at all levels
- Tax impact analysis in a variety of commercial transactions, including purchase and sale of a business, financing arrangements, license agreements, employee stock option agreements
- Business succession planning and advice
- All matters relating to shareholders’ and partnership agreements
- Establishment of trusts to achieve current or longer‐term tax savings and creditor protection
- International tax planning involving cross‐border transactions, including the impact of tax treaties and coordination with tax professionals in foreign jurisdictions
- Tax planning for immigration and emigration of individuals and corporations
- Advice on HST/GST issues that arise in commercial transactions
- Advice on land transfer tax issues
- Preparation of wills and powers of attorney
- Freezing of estate assets in order to minimize taxation arising on death
- Establishment of family trusts to achieve current tax savings, maintain control and flexibility in an estate freeze, ensure Family Law Act protection and planning for tax-efficient distributions of assets
- Succession of family businesses
- Avoidance and/or minimization of probate fees
- Preparation of domestic contracts to protect specific assets
- Determination of tax-efficient use of life insurance in a variety of circumstances, including the buy‐out of business partners, facilitating succession of a family business and providing liquidity to pay capital gains tax arising on death
- Foreign tax issues, including the impact of U.S. estate tax
- Tax‐efficient planning for charitable donations during lifetime and in wills
- Avoidance of double taxation that could otherwise arise on death
Primary Contact
Estate Planning
Lindsay Ann Histrop
Partner and Chair - Trusts and Estates Law Group
T 416.865.6683
F 416.865.6636
- Advised Canadian real estate developer on structure of $40 million joint venture with development partners;
- Provided legal advice on transfer pricing policies of Canadian-based telecommunications corporation with significant pension plan deficit in foreign affiliate;
- Established captive insurance company in Barbados for a Canadian-based real estate development company with U.S. operations;
- Advised a successful Canadian interior decorator on his acquisition of U.S. real property interests;
- Advised an ultra-high-net-worth Canadian resident on a departure tax plan involving a private charitable foundation;
- Advised a terminally-ill doctor on reorganizing his affairs, including share and debt capital reorganizations, settling an Alter Ego Trust and Principal Residence Trust, and revising Wills to include testamentary trusts;
- Established a Barbados-based trust and corporate structure to protect business and investment assets of Venezuelan families;
- Negotiated successfully with the Canada Revenue Agency in connection with voluntary disclosures of unreported income for an individual with investment income from a foreign jurisdiction with a blocked currency, for a computer software company whose managing director appropriated assets and funds from the company, and for a Canadian-based multinational corporate group with defective international tax planning;
- Worked with litigation counsel to obtain Rectification Order to prevent realization of unintended $24 million capital gain in defective corporate reorganization.
- Planning in connection with a number of situations where a Family Trust was approaching the deemed disposition for income tax purposes arising on the 21st anniversary of its settlement.
- Dealing with the Canada Revenue Agency in various situations of a Family Trust being audited or reassessed.
- Preparing Shareholders’ Agreements for family-owned corporations.
- Dealing with tax and estate planning issues for U.S. citizens resident in Canada.
- Preparing marriage contracts to protect interests in family-owned corporations and trusts.
- Advising clients on the structuring and implementation of tax-efficient corporate reorganizations.
- Advising clients on matters of estate and succession planning, including the drafting of wills and designing plans that address the income and estate administration tax ramifications of the client’s objectives.
- Handling a complex post mortem variation of trusts under a will, deferring taxes of over $2.5 million, thereby ensuring the continued viability of the deceased’s highly successful business.
- Negotiating a settlement, on behalf of the estate, in respect of a contentious will interpretation matter in which there were over 700 potential beneficiaries, saving the estate and its beneficiaries thousands of dollars in legal costs.
- Assisting a terminally ill client in structuring her estate plan to benefit her family and favoured charities, preserving the estate for the beneficiaries by eliminating substantial income and probate taxes on death.
- Resolving a family dispute over the division of the deceased’s real estate holdings and other assets on death, maintaining both family ownership and family harmony.
- Assisting executors in the efficient management of a business and its 65 employees following the sudden death of the owner-manager, and successfully achieving the sale of the business within 6 months of the owner’s death.
Primary Contact
Estate Planning
Lindsay Ann Histrop
Partner and Chair - Trusts and Estates Law Group
T 416.865.6683
F 416.865.6636
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Lindsay Ann Histrop
Partner and Chair - Trusts and Estates Law Group
T 416.865.6683
F 416.865.6636
