Portfolio Estate Law helps Canadian, cross-border and international clients with tax and estate planning and estate administration matters, provides special tax and succession planning assistance for artists’ estates, and also provides trustee and fiduciary services. The firm also assists vulnerable persons.
Estate planning can involve the following:
- making a will;
- making limited and continuing power of attorney documents for property;
- making power of attorney documents for personal care;
- making power of attorney documents that comply with foreign law, if a person plans to spend time in a foreign jurisdiction;
- settling trusts during one’s lifetime, including family trusts, spousal trusts and alter ego trusts;
- putting assets in joint ownership with the right of survivorship;
- reorganizing interests in private corporations to crystallize their value for income tax purposes (“estate freezes”);
- purchasing life insurance and making beneficiary designations;
- making beneficiary designations for registered savings assets, such as Registered Retirement Savings Plans (RRSPs), Registered Retirement Income Funds (RRIFs), other private pension assets and Tax-Free Savings Accounts (TFSAs);
- making testamentary instruments in other countries where a person may have assets;
- providing written consent and instructions regarding any preserved human reproductive tissue;
- planning for an artist’s inventory of works of art;
- establishing charitable foundations;
- making charitable donations; and
- taking other actions that can minimize income, estate administration and other taxes.
Estate administration can involve the following:
- carrying out a deceased person’s wishes regarding their final remains, including the placement of ashes and body donation for scientific research;
- repatriation of a deceased person’s remains to another country;
- managing a deceased person’s property until it can be distributed to their beneficiaries;
- paying a deceased person’s bills, debts and taxes;
- advertising for creditors;
- locating and interpreting the will;
- applying for a certificate of appointment of estate trustee to the court (commonly known as “probate”);
- applying for a certificate of appointment of estate trustee to the court, where there is a will (“tesate succession”) and where there is no will (“intestate succession”);
- applying for a “resealing” of a certificate of appointment of estate trustee where the original probate of a will was granted in another Commonwealth country;
- applying for an ancillary grant of a certificate of appointment of estate trustee where the original probate of a will was granted in another non-Commonwealth country;
- managing testamentary trusts established under a will;
- selling of a deceased person’s property and preparing financial assets for distribution to beneficiaries;
- completing income and estate administration tax returns; and
- applying for an income tax clearance certificate.
Artists’ Estates:
Artists’ estates require special tax planning in order to optimize the outcome of the deemed disposition on death that may apply to artists’ portfolios and other components of their estates. Artists also require special terms to be included in their estate planning documents in order to ensure that their wishes regarding their art and legacies can be carried out appropriately. Portfolio Estate Law provides these services to artists.
Trustee and Fiduciary Services:
Birute Luksenaite, the Principal of Porfolio Estate Law, provides professional trustee and other fiduciary-type services. These services include acting as an attorney for property under a continuing attorney for property instrument, acting as an executor of an estate and a trustee of a trust.