our 10th year
blog anniversary
In both our August 2015 and March 2016 blog posts, we discussed the importance of frequently reviewing your estate planning documents, as personal and financial circumstances can constantly change. Failing to make necessary revisions to your estate planning documents may result in unintended consequences that do not accurately reflect your
On July 18, 2017, the Federal Government announced changes to close “loopholes” in the taxation of private corporation income. One of the stated goals is to provide for “fairness” in the taxation of income so that business income earned through a private corporation is not “unfairly” subject to lesser rates
U.S. tax reform measures were signed into law by President Trump on December 22, 2017, culminating a whirlwind legislative process at the end of 2017 which resulted in the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (the “Tax Act”), the most significant changes to U.S. tax law in over three decades. These
No doubt many U.S. legislators were chewing on tax reform over the U.S. Thanksgiving weekend, as well as enjoying their turkey, as unprecedented momentum is moving U.S reforms ahead at breakneck speed demonstrating Congress’s desire to complete tax reform before year end. The proposed changes will be the most significant
One of the questions we often get asked by people who are planning their estates or for incapacity is who they should appoint to be the executors of their will or their substitute decision makers if they become incapable. (In Ontario, substitute decision makers during incapacity are known as attorneys
On January 1, 2017, most of the provisions of the All Families Are Equal Act (Parentage and Related Registrations Statute Law Amendments), 2016 (S.O. 2016, c. 23) came into effect in Ontario. The intention of the Act is to establish new rules of parentage in Ontario to deal with the
As we return from Labour Day weekend and reflect back on the summer that never quite was, a major issue that will grab attention over the next weeks, now that it’s business as usual again, is the government’s recent tax proposals. The government chose on July 17, 2017 in the
One of the interesting changes in our modern age when it comes to succession on death is that for many people, most of what they pass to their family and others will not be through their will, but instead by a “will substitute” such as life insurance. Many persons have
A current trend in the increasingly expensive Canadian housing market is parents helping children or grandchildren and their spouses with a down payment or mortgage on a first home. In Ontario, about 35% of people buying homes now receive assistance from their relatives with a down payment and approximately 38%
In March of this year, I wrote about the complications which can arise in administering an estate of an individual who owns a vacation home in a U.S. state such as Florida or Arizona. In that blog, I discussed issues in estate administration which arise from the multi-jurisdictional location of