In today’s complex financial landscape, obtaining precise and high-quality legal advice is crucial for creating, growing, and preserving your wealth. The Cassels Private Client Group offers a personalized approach tailored to meet your unique needs, including those of family enterprises and intergenerational wealth management.
Holistic Approach
Our holistic strategy empowers clients by developing comprehensive solutions that address all levels of complexity in wealth management. We work closely with you and your other professional service providers to create a customized approach that extends to representing multiple generations within a family or family enterprise. We serve a diverse clientele, including high net worth and ultra high net worth individuals and families, business owners and their companies, family offices (both single office and multi-family offices), financial institutions, corporate and trust fiduciaries, and charities and non-profits.
Leveraging our extensive expertise, we help clients achieve their goals while putting in place the right plan in order to minimizing all levels of tax and ensure peace of mind and wealth preservation so that our clients feel confident that their hard-earned wealth will be preserved for future generations. Our collaboration with leading financial institutions, and family offices ensures a robust, effective, and 360° approach to all of your private client needs.
Individual, Corporate, and Family Enterprise Tax Planning
We work closely with our client’s personal, professional, and financial advisors in ensuring that a collaborative approach is taken to ensure clients receive the best overall tax advice.
Our tax & trust lawyers have a depth of experience in providing generational tax planning for individuals, families and private companies. Clients appreciate our ability to set up tax-efficient structures that are tailored to the client’s particular goals. We have experience with various corporate reorganizations and trust structures, all with a view to minimize overall tax. We provide a complete range of tax planning services, from the day-to-day issues to long term planning needs. Our team has earned a reputation for providing holistic advice in planning and delivering seamless and comprehensive tax solutions to clients.
Estates, Trusts, Incapacity, and Succession Planning
We ensure that your estate planning addresses your personal and family goals and fit the specific needs of your family culture.
We help high net worth and ultra high net worth individuals and families formulate and implement comprehensive, tax-driven estate plans for managing and transferring wealth to the next generation. By collaborating closely with family offices, tax, banking, insurance, business, and other advisors, we implement holistic solutions and structures that are practical and ensure efficient tax planning, accountability of management to the family, and alignment with the family leaders’ vision for maintaining and growing the organization for future generations.
Cross Border Estate & Tax Planning
Across the street or across the border, we ensure that your tax plan is secure.
Our tax and estates professionals, who are licensed in both Canada and the US, have significant experience in helping individuals and families who own or plan on owning assets in another jurisdiction, have intended beneficiaries living or holding citizenship in another jurisdiction, and Canadian residents who are subject to the tax regimes of another country, including advising on any tax planning and advice for non-resident trusts. We also often assist private companies in putting in place tax efficient structures for corporate ownership outside of Canada, working with partners throughout the world.
For multi-jurisdictional estates, the implementation of probate planning, life insurance planning, trusts, wills, powers of attorney for various assets need to be carefully contemplated in a comprehensive manner to avoid unintended tax and administrative burdens.
For Canadian residents considering emigration to another country, we regularly advise on departure tax planning, ongoing tax treatment and efficacy of cross-border corporate or trust structures, and exposure to new tax issues post emigration. Additionally, for individuals looking to move to Canada, we can ensure that the appropriate structure, whether it includes corporations or trusts, is reviewed and implemented in a timely manner to ensure the best structure for Canadian tax purposes.
Private Company and Family Business Planning
Our holistic approach ensures that we work closely with various other professionals involved in proper family enterprise planning, including those involved in accounting, insurance, banking and investment advisory and management.
Our lawyers integrate family and business concerns into the overall business succession process by preparing family partnerships, family driven shareholder agreements, key corporate agreements, shareholder buy-sell agreements and a myriad of other types of agreements to smooth the process for intergenerational planning. We plan and implement tax efficient and comprehensive business succession plans to ensure that family-owned businesses can remain within the family, regardless of life events, such as the death or disability of active family members. We develop and implement various agreements and compensation arrangements for business owners, including provisions for family members who are not active in the business.
Philanthropic Planning
Our goal is to provide our non-profit clients and their founders with comfort that they are meeting their complex legal obligations so that they can concentrate on achieving their missions successfully.
Charities and non-profits face unique legal and regulatory challenges. Our lawyers offer practical legal guidance to these entities and their founders on a wide range of tax compliance matters, including, but not limited to, structuring and registering public and private foundations as well as operational charities, gifting, receipting, grant-making, reporting, and conducting activities in foreign jurisdictions. Additionally, we support the efficiency and effectiveness of these organizations by providing commercial, corporate governance and risk management advice. This includes advising on contracts, director and officer duties and liability, preparation of by-laws and policies, and assisting with board and member disputes.
Our Clients
- HNWI and UHNWI, executives, and families
- Family business owners and their companies
- Individuals and families with US/foreign assets and/or US/foreign citizenship, or plans to move to or from a foreign jurisdiction
- Single Family and Multi-Family Offices, accountants, financial planners, and other trusted advisors
- Professional fiduciaries, including trust companies
- Estates, trusts, executors, and trustees
- Beneficiaries of trusts and estates
- Charities and non-profits