Ontario Estate Taxes: Significant and Unexpected

Dynamic Elise Pulver, LLB, will address significant and unexpected changes to the Estate and Administration Tax Act, at the Distinguished Advisor Workshop, June 22 in Toronto.   

This tax is being charged on the entire value of the deceased’s estate, including any real estate held in Ontario, bank accounts, investments, business interests and insurance policies, if there is no named beneficiary. Tax, investment and insurance advisors will want to be at this event to come up to speed.

Elise, a partner with Aird & Berlis LLP’s Tax Group, Estates & Trusts Group and Wealth Management & Succession Planning Team, will suggest ways that advisors can engage in conversations with their clients to ensure that they have proper planning in place to reduce their exposure to new federal trust tax rules that are coming into force January 2016 and the Ontario Estate Administration Taxes (formerly called probate fees).  Those provincial rules came into force January 1, 2015 and will attract over $3000 in fees payable by an estate with a value of $240,000; more as the value rises.

On the federal side, Elise will provide an explanation of current taxation of trusts and estates, spousal testamentary trusts, alter ego and joint spousal inter vivos trusts, by overviewing the draft legislation introduced in August 2014 and passed into law in December of 2014.  The changes relevant to trusts and estates were introduced in Federal budgets of 2013 and 2014. 

Greer Jacks will cover the changes in Vancouver on June 19th; Walter Harder in Winnipeg on June 17th and Calgary on June 18.Knowledge Bureau will unveil new personal and trust-tax estimators at the events, and provide each attendee with a free one-month subscription to both. It’s not too late to register for our June Workshops and learn how changes to trust-tax rules will impact your clients and their families.