As one year ends and a new one begins, it is a time to reflect on the year’s accomplishments, and to set our goals and objectives for the year ahead. While it may not seem festive, it’s the perfect time of year to work on a financial and estate plan.

Estate planning simply means having a plan in place to enable succession planning in your business or how to deal with your assets in the event of your death. The legal documents associated with an estate plan can include a will, powers of attorney and trusts.

Medical and financial decisions

Everyone needs a will, no matter whether you have a complex estate or modest assets, you want to ensure they go to the right places and people without delay or undue expense. Powers of attorney grant a trusted person the ability to act on your behalf should you become incapacitated. You can choose to cover medial decisions, financial ones or both. A trust is a contract that allows an individual you name (the trustee) to deal with the assets you bequeath for the benefit of designated people (the beneficiaries). A trust can be a particularly useful tool with elderly parents or dependent children to help them manage their affairs.

Many entrepreneurs start early, set up the company in their own name and then march forward growing the business and creating wealth.

For example, if you’re 60, successful and have two children involved in your business… you may be wondering, what happens if you die? First, there is a deemed disposition on death. This means that your estate will pay tax on the difference between the initial value of the shares in the company you hold and the value today. It could be a significant amount of money. Where will it come from? Second, who gets the shares and control of the business? This is a recipe for disaster, unless there has been planning. All your work potentially at risk. In order to fix this, speak to an experienced corporate lawyer with tax knowledge or a tax specialist accountant. They can guide you on setting up the appropriate holding companies and performing permissible freezes and restructure to allow for orderly succession planning and tax minimization.

Take action now

It really doesn’t matter what kind of business you have. You could be a doctor, lawyer, engineer or any professional with an operating company. You could be a sales organization, manufacturer or simply an investor; all can be helped, and moreover, maybe you need a company for tax and liability protection.

All in all, the good news is that you don’t need to do all of this alone. An estate lawyer can help you with more than just drafting a will. An experienced corporate tax and real estate lawyer can assist with planning and structure and may bring in the experts you require or just help get going.

Procrastination is the number one issue when it comes to estate, succession and corporate planning. Now is the time to take action.