Family Wealth & Estate Planning

Yes. Canada has no estate tax, but the law treats your property as "disposed of at fair market value" on death and computes capital gains on the accrued increase all at once — often the single largest cost in a succession. On top of that come probate fees and any foreign tax that cross-border assets trigger. The point of planning ahead is to smooth or defer that deemed-disposition tax rather than have it land all in the year of death.

Family trusts are typically used for three goals: wealth preservation and risk insulation (separating assets from personal debts and business risk), succession (distributing among beneficiaries according to your wishes rather than a simple equal split), and tax optimization within the rules. But a trust isn't a cure-all — it has setup and maintenance costs and rules such as the 21-year deemed disposition, and once a U.S.-person beneficiary is involved the cross-border reporting gets materially more complex. Whether it fits depends on your asset structure and family.

An estate freeze is a common succession tool: you "freeze" the current value of an asset (usually company shares) in your own hands, while future growth accrues to new shares held by the next generation. On death your deemed disposition is computed on the frozen value, and the tax on growth beyond that shifts to the next generation — moving the tax across generations and managing cash flow. It's usually used with a holding company and a trust, and the structure needs to be tailored.

Within the rules you can, but the room has narrowed. Canada's TOSI (tax on split income) rules tax certain amounts distributed to family members at the top rate unless a specific exclusion applies (such as genuine involvement in the business, age, and reasonableness of the return). Common compliant routes include prescribed-rate loan arrangements. Whether you can split, to whom and how much has to be judged case by case against the income source and each family member's situation.

Possibly. Even if you're neither a U.S. citizen nor resident, holding "U.S.-situated assets" (such as U.S. real estate or shares in U.S. corporations) can bring them within U.S. estate tax on death, and the exemption for non-U.S. persons is far lower than for U.S. nationals. Whether tax is due, and whether a holding structure or treaty can reduce it, depends on the asset type and amount. Cross-border families holding U.S. assets should assess this exposure ahead of time.