Guest post by Joe Tablan; Corporate Insurance & Wealth Planning, Clear Point Wealth Management – www.clearpointwm.com
Estate planning tends to get pushed to the bottom of the list for busy incorporated business owners. It feels like a big, complicated project — one more thing to deal with “someday.” In reality, it’s a series of specific, manageable decisions. For business owners, though, those decisions carry more weight than a standard estate plan, because a corporation isn’t just another asset — it’s often the largest one, and how it’s structured today determines what your family actually keeps tomorrow.
Here are three steps to start the process properly.
Step 1: Take Full Inventory — Personal and Corporate
Most people start an estate plan by listing personal assets: the house(s), investment accounts, the RRSP, and personal will. For an incorporated professional, that’s only half the picture.
You also need a clear view of your corporate assets: an up-to-date Organizational chart (Org chart), retained earnings within the company, holdco investments, the value of your shares, Individual pension plans, and any corporate-owned life insurance. These assets don’t transfer the same way personal assets do, and they’re frequently the piece that gets missed when a will is drafted without input from a financial advisor who understands the corporate structure. Also stress the purpose of each asset (e.g., retirement, wealth transfer, charitable giving) and how it will be affected.
Step 2: Understand the Tax Exposure — Especially Around the CDA
Once you know what you own, the real question is what happens to it on death. For incorporated business owners, three issues come up repeatedly:
Double taxation on private corporation shares. Without planning, the same value can be taxed once as a deemed disposition of shares and again as the corporation pays out its retained earnings — a problem well-documented in Canadian tax planning and typically addressed through post-mortem strategies like a pipeline transaction or a loss carryback. Section 70.
The Capital Dividend Account (CDA). Non-taxable capital gains of an asset as well as life insurance held inside a corporation can create a tax-free credit to the CDA on death, allowing the proceeds to flow to your estate or beneficiaries without personal tax. Structuring this correctly — and reviewing your will alongside your corporate structure — is one of the most effective ways to reduce the tax bill your estate would otherwise face. Section 83 & 89.
LCGE. A hidden opportunity that many business owners often overlook until it’s too late is the ability to structure their business for sale in a way that captures the Lifetime Capital Gains Exemption (LCGE), Section 110.6. It takes a few years of prep to ensure qualification, but by preparing your company for a sale, you can save up to $1,275,000 in 2026 on capital gains on that sale. If structured with family involved through a trust, you can also multiply that amount if done properly.
If your will was drafted independently of your corporate strategy, this is usually the gap worth closing first.
Step 3: Coordinate the Plan Across Your Whole Team
An estate plan built by one advisor in isolation rarely holds up. The strongest plans come from your accountant, lawyer, and financial advisor working from the same strategy — whether that involves an estate freeze to lock in current value for tax purposes, a family trust for income splitting and creditor protection, corporately owned life insurance, or some combination built around your specific situation.
The objective isn’t a document that sits in a drawer. It’s a coordinated plan that protects what you’ve built inside the corporation and transfers it efficiently — with as little erosion to tax as possible. Discussions with your family, partners and anyone directly involved every two to three years are a critical start to ensure everything is agreed upon and everyone knows where things will go. This is usually the most missed step, leading to disputes and family grievances that could have been avoided.
Getting Started
If your estate plan hasn’t been reviewed alongside your corporate structure with the team, that’s the natural place to begin. A short strategy call can help identify where the gaps are and which tools — whether that’s a freeze, a trust, or a CDA-focused insurance strategy — make sense for your business.
Joe Tablan
Principal|Advanced Case Consultant
Corporate Insurance & Wealth Planning 1810-1075 W. Georgia St.
Vancouver, BC, V6E 3C9
p. (604) 377-1915
