The Barrie Estate Planning and Administration Practice Group of Devry Smith Frank LLP (“DSF”) provide our clients with a fully integrated approach to wealth management and preservation through comprehensive, individualized, and cost-effective estate planning and long-term care planning legal services.
We assist individuals, families, trustees, charitable institutions, family businesses and private companies with all aspects of estate planning, including personal financial and business planning, gift tax planning, estate and personal income tax planning, business succession planning, estate administration, planning for charitable giving, the administration of trusts and decedents’ estates, and international estate planning.
The Barrie Estate Planning and Administration legal team of Devry Smith Frank LLP advises a wide base of clientele on the domestic and international front on a broad range of business and personal matters relating to:
We help our clients develop effective tax-strategies for the management and preservation of their wealth through trust planning, estate freezes, income splitting techniques, professional corporations, tax shelters, partnership structuring and the use of private foundations. We work with other professionals to provide advice on compensation and retirement planning, and offer structuring options involving life insurance or other insurance based products where necessary.
We also offer tax advice on tax planning relating to immigration and emigration to and from Canada. Whatever income level you have, our Barrie tax planning lawyers will make certain that your hard-earned money is working for you in the most tax-effective manner possible and also help you structure your estate plan to minimize your estate’s exposure to tax and ensure that your beneficiaries get the maximum value of the assets you leave behind for them.
DSF tax lawyers are very experienced in designing and implementing tax plans to ensure that your corporation is maximizing its wealth through appropriate tax planning. We give advice to assess that there is an appropriate corporate structure in place and provide tax efficient strategies to effectively manage your corporate taxes, make the most of tax opportunities, and avoid tax risks.Barrie Estate Planning Services
Our estate planning services involves helping our clients make tax-effective decisions for the disposition of their estates after death or in the event that they become unable to make their own financial decisions and also for the continuation of family businesses. We employ estate planning tools involving the laws of wills, trusts, probate, property, marriage and provincial and federal taxation to properly plan estates to help reduce the exposure to taxes. In addition, we execute documents that may include a will, a revocable trust, asset and healthcare durable powers of attorney, and a life insurance trust. We carefully draft each client’s legal documents to fit his or her unique circumstances and estate planning objectives and make sure that we use language that supply as much flexibility to our clients as possible and include provisions for later tax planning, some protection from a beneficiary’s creditors or divorcing spouse and advance directives for long-term disability care or the continuation or termination of life support where necessary.
We assist individuals and families in all phases of the estate administration process, working closely with family members and advisers from the initial stages of filing of a petition with the proper probate court, notifying heirs under the will or to statutory heirs (if no will exists), petitioning to appoint Executor (in the case of a will) or Administrator for the estate, inventory and appraisal of estate assets by Executor or Administrator, payment of estate debt to rightful creditors, the sale of estate assets, payment of estate taxes, if applicable, and up to the final distribution of assets to heirs. Our lawyers work closely with full-time estate administrators and accountants to effectively and efficiently handle estates of all sizes and complexities.
We assist clients in creating individual financial plans for the management and use of assets for the protection of the individual during his or her lifetime. Our lawyers act as trusted advisors providing sound investment advice, tax-saving strategies and financial planning strategies for a range of issues that can affect the current and future state of your estate, including legal and tax aspects of joint ownership of property, formation of family limited partnerships and limited liability companies for the management of property and for lifetime transfers to family members, the use of durable powers of attorney and revocable living trusts and advance directives for health care to prepare for the possibility of disability, the tax advantages of making use of gifts and the general effect of income tax laws.
Our estate lawyers assist executors in handling the multiple responsibilities of estate settlement after the death of a loved one. We can help you with whatever level of assistance you may require to meet your estate settlement needs. Our services include preparing and filing pleadings and other documents in the appropriate probate court, marshalling the estate assets, preparing an inventory of estate assets, settlement of claims, preparing the deceased’s final income tax returns, preparation of fiduciary income tax returns and other tax obligations such as the estate and inheritance tax returns, representation in the audit of such returns, if applicable, preparing and reviewing of accountings and other liabilities, interpreting the will and distributing the assets to legal heirs or beneficiaries.
Our Trust Administration Lawyers in Barrie provide advice to trustees with regard to their investment, tax, and accounting responsibilities in the management of trust property according to the trust document’s terms. We can effectively provide guidance and assistance to safeguard effective administration, including services for the preparation of fiduciary income tax returns or estate and inheritance tax returns in cases dealing with revocable living trusts, representing trustees in any tax returns audit, if necessary and in the interpretation of trust provisions and in the distribution of assets to beneficiaries.
At Devry Smith Frank LLP, we passionately believe it’s important to have a basic estate plan in place regardless of your net worth. Whether you are an individual or a business entity with a large-size or modest-size estate, our Barrie estate services can help you create an estate plan, and advise you on sound investment strategies and tax-effective strategies to properly manage your assets, preserve your assets and distribute your assets so you can protect your legacy.
Our expert team of legal professionals work on a variety of cases involving the taxation of corporations, partnerships, and charitable organizations, pensions and retirement plans, social security benefits, estates, trusts, gifts, bonds, and more. We collaborate with our firm’s specialists in taxation, insurance, real estate and business law to effectively meet our clients’ complex needs.
For more information regarding any of your estate Planning needs, please contact our Barrie Estate Planning lawyers listed on the right on this page.We encourage you to visit our full roster of lawyers practicing in many different areas of law and visiting our other office locations in Toronto, Barrie and Whitby.
MA LL.B. LL.M
