Update on TOSI – Questions Answered and Remaining Ambiguities

My last blog post regarding Tax on Split Income (“TOSI”) was posted back in December of 2018. Since then, some tax practitioners have done their fair share of hair-pulling and sobbing over the TOSI rules now in effect. Some saw these rules get passed into law and decided it was a good time to retire. I refuse to retire before the Maple Leafs win that Stanley Cup, so I’m sticking around and digging into the TOSI rules (although based on the Leafs recent play, I may have to select other retirement criteria).

The main complaint from my tax colleagues and our corporate clients is not the new legislation’s complexity but its perceived vagueness. In an attempt to cover all the bases, the Department of Finance created a piece of legislation that is sometimes unclear – which makes advising clients a bit like throwing darts at a moving target.

(So much so that the upcoming new edition of the Canadian Tax Foundation’s book on the taxation of private corporations includes key TOSI info for the tax community. Shameless plug: BDO is co-writing this much-anticipated publication. The book will be out later this year and we will provide an update when it is available).

To get you updated on TOSI, I invited Robert Wyka to discuss and break down the recent developments. Rob is a senior tax accountant in BDO’s Markham office.

_________________

By Robert Wyka

Over the past year, the CRA has provided some clarifying commentary on issues raised by the tax community. Below we discuss some of the items that the CRA has clarified along with remaining uncertainties. Much of the commentary comes from recent technical interpretations and CRA comments at various tax conferences where the CRA was asked how TOSI applies in a variety of circumstances.

Excluded business – The 20-hour test 

The TOSI excluded business exception can be met if a family member who is 18 or older works in the business on a “regular, continuous and substantial basis” in the current year or any five previous years. The legislation provides a “bright-line” test of 20 hours a week. This means that if your spouse or adult child regularly works at least 20 hours per week the exclusion is met and dividends paid to them would not be considered split income (assuming they are shareholders in the corporation).

On the surface, this appeared to be a straightforward test to meet. However, as people are starting to apply these rules to their own situations, some interesting questions arise:

1. What if my business is seasonal and only operates for part of the year?
2. What if the nature of the business does not require that many hours? For example, if the husband and wife are the only employees and can run the business with 30 hours of work a week total.
3. What if I worked for more than 20 hours a week consistently but took a period of time off for maternity leave?
4. Do the previous five years have to be consecutive?
5. I married an ex-employee who worked for me several years ago - would they meet this exclusion?

It is important to remember that the 20-hour test is not in-and-of-itself the rule, but rather a tool to assist in determining whether you meet the excluded business criteria – if you work 20 hours a week, you will automatically qualify for this exclusion. The CRA has also confirmed that the requirement to be involved in the business on a “regular, continuous and substantial basis” can be met despite working fewer than 20 hours per week or taking a period of time off. The CRA warns, however, that this depends on the facts of your particular case and highlights the importance of proper recordkeeping. Finally, the 20-hour requirement applies to the portion of the year in which the business operates. If a business is seasonal, one can still meet the exception if at least 20 hours are worked per week when the business is operational.

The CRA has also confirmed that years for the “previous 5 years test” do not have to be consecutive.

Finally, if you marry an ex-employee who subsequently acquires shares of your corporation, those years they worked when not married to you still count for this test. HR types typically advise people not to date co-workers and subordinates, but it appears that, from a tax planning perspective, it just may pay dividends. 

Dividends

It is interesting to note that despite there being strict “reasonability” rules regarding paying related individuals’ salaries, the same may not be true for dividends. At the 2019 STEP conference, CRA was asked to comment on the “excluded business” test using the following fact pattern:

• Individual X owns and operates a professional corporation, Xco.
• Spouse Y owns shares of Xco and works as a receptionist for 20 hours a week, thus meeting the bright-line test.
• Typically, a part-time receptionist working these hours would earn $18,000 per annum. However, because Y is a shareholder, Y receives a dividend of $150,000 each year.

The CRA confirmed that the $150,000 dividend would not be subject to TOSI, as the excluded business exception applies. This may be useful to keep in mind when contemplating remuneration strategies.

If you want to rely on this exclusion, thorough payroll records to support hours worked in the business will need to be available. 

TOSI after death

The death of a taxpayer triggers several serious tax consequences. Some of the most impactful tax planning we do as tax practitioners involves structuring people’s affairs in a way to minimize tax consequences as a result of death.

TOSI is no exception. Thankfully, there is relief for taxpayers who receive shares from spouses upon death. These “piggy-back” tax rules require you to look at how the income would have been treated in the original spouse’s hands. If the income would have been excluded from TOSI if earned by the deceased spouse, the same treatment will apply to the surviving spouse. However, what happens when both spouses die and shares are passed down to surviving children?

The CRA was asked to contemplate the following scenario:

• Mr. and Mrs. A own all the shares of Opco, which operates a services business.
• Mrs. A has been actively engaged in the business for at least five years, whereas Mr. A has not been actively engaged in the business.
• Mrs. A passes away and all her shares are gifted through her will to Mr. A.
• Subsequent distributions from Opco to Mr. A would not be split income as Opco would be deemed to be an excluded business in respect of Mr. A.
• How will the deeming rules apply if Mr. A subsequently dies and those shares are gifted to the children as a consequence of his death?

The CRA’s response confirmed that in this situation the attributes of the original deceased parent – Mrs. A – would be transferred down to the next generation when Mr. A ultimately dies and his surviving children inherit the shares of Opco. Thus, Mrs. A’s “good attributes” could ultimately extend to the surviving children after Mr. A passes away, and thus TOSI would not apply to any dividends paid on such inherited shares. 

Multiple businesses

As if the TOSI legislation weren’t complicated enough, the CRA has made it clear that in situations where a corporation operates multiple “businesses,” certain amounts may have to be separately tracked on a business-by-business basis.

Let me illustrate this with an example:

• Mr. A owns and operates a business through a corporation, BuildCo. His business specializes in two areas: construction, and property management.
• Mrs. A works 40 hours a week handling the property management side of the business.

At first glance, it appears that Mrs. A meets the “excluded business” exception as she works, on average, over 20 hours per week. Unfortunately, it is the CRA’s position that the construction and property management endeavors represent two separate businesses. Each business is to be evaluated separately for the purposes of TOSI.

In the above scenario, Mrs. A would meet the excluded business criteria only for income derived from the property management business and NOT the construction business. This of course requires businesses to separately track the income and subsequent distributions for each business. 

Corporations that provide services

Typically, if the corporation is not a professional corporation, earns income from unrelated sources, and the specified individual owns directly 10% or more of the votes and value of the corporation, income distributions will not be subject to TOSI. However, an issue arises if the corporation provides “services.” As a condition for the excluded shares exception, the corporation must have less than 90% of its business income from the provision of services; otherwise, TOSI applies (unless another exclusion can be met).

There was some confusion regarding what “business income” meant for purposes of TOSI, as it is undefined. The CRA has clarified that they interpret it to mean gross business income, not net income. Some ambiguity remains for those business owners whose corporation earns service and non-service revenue. In certain circumstances, it may be difficult to determine what is and is not a service, or if the services provided are incidental to the activities generating the non-service revenue.

Consider, for example, a business that sells, installs, and repairs washing and drying machines in condominiums. The sale of the machines is not a service. What about the installation and repair? One can argue that the installation is merely incidental to the non-service item – the sale of the machine. Repair is more ambiguous. Are you repairing machines you previously sold, or are these machines purchased somewhere else but just need repair?

Depending on the facts of your situation, it may not be clear what is, and is not, a service. If you feel that your company may be approaching that 90% threshold, it would be prudent to do a more detailed analysis. The CRA has provided additional guidance and examples here.

Just as with the excluded business exception, the CRA recognizes and expects that taxpayers will have a greater compliance burden as they will now have to track specific revenue streams to ensure they are on side. If your corporation has multiple businesses or a mix of service and non-service revenue sources, speak with your accountant. Your bookkeeping may have to be modified in order to appropriately track these items. 

TOSI in retirement

A common retirement strategy for successful business owners is to sell their business and use the proceeds to purchase an investment portfolio to fund their retirement. This can take either of these forms:

1. The corporation sells all of its assets and closes down the business. The resulting proceeds are used to purchase an investment portfolio. The corporation now no longer operates the original business but is simply used as a vehicle to hold the investment portfolio.
2. A holding company is incorporated, which in turn sells the shares of the operating company. The holding company then uses the sale proceeds to purchase investments.

Let us consider scenario #1 for a moment using the following facts. Assume that when WidgetCo was operational, it was an excluded business for Mr. A. Dividends could be paid to Mr. A without triggering TOSI, because he was actively engaged in the business. Fast-forward to today, when there is no Widget business, just the investment portfolio. Can Mr. A still rely on the excluded business exception when receiving dividends from accumulated earnings (i.e., a dividend paid out of historical earnings, not from income derived from the investment portfolio) once that excluded business no longer exists? Based on an August 2019 Technical Interpretation, the answer would be no.

The dividend income will not be subject to the TOSI rules when it is received by “an individual who has attained the age of 17 before a particular taxation year, [and] if it is derived directly or indirectly from an excluded business of the individual for the year." 

The CRA’s position is that although the dividend income in scenario #1 is derived directly or indirectly from an excluded business, it would not be considered derived from an excluded business of Mr. A “for the year." Because WidgetCo’s business was no longer operating in the year the dividend was received, the income cannot be considered to be derived from that business for the year.

Scenario #2 has an analogous analysis and conclusion. 

What about the excluded share exception?

In a June 2019 Technical Interpretation, the CRA was asked to analyze a situation that resembles scenario #2 outlined previously. In this case, the CRA was asked if a taxpayer could rely on the excluded share exemption.

One of the requirements to meet the definition of “excluded shares” is that “all or substantially all of the income of the corporation for the [previous] taxation year … is income that is not derived, directly or indirectly, from one or more related businesses … other than a business of the corporation.”

This criterion creates an issue in Holdco-Opco structures. If Holdco’s only income is from Opco (a related business), being dividends or a capital gain on the sale of Opco, then shares of Holdco are not “excluded shares.” If the proceeds of Opco’s sale are reinvested by purchasing publicly traded securities, at what point does the CRA consider the funds held in Holdco not to be “derived directly or indirectly from a related business” (Opco)?

The CRA explained its position as follows:

• Year of sale – Holdco shares would not be eligible for excluded share treatment. Holdco’s income from the prior year (or current year if this is the first year of Holdco’s incorporation) was derived from a related business (dividends from Opco and/or the capital gain on sale).
• One year after sale – Holdco shares would not be eligible for excluded share treatment. Holdco’s income from the prior year is derived from the capital gain on sale of Opco, and any dividends paid prior to the sale.
• Two or more years after sale – Holdco shares would be eligible for the excluded share exception (assuming all other conditions are met). None of its income from the prior year was derived directly, or indirectly, from Opco.

The different treatment of excluded business and excluded shares is important to consider when planning for retirement or a corporate reorganization. Whether or not a TOSI exclusion applies may change after a restructuring or business sale. 

What is a business?

For adults, TOSI only applies to amounts received from a “related business.” However, when considering the aforementioned retirement scenarios, is sitting on a beach drinking mojitos and collecting dividends really a “business”? After all, how is this any different from holding the investment portfolio in an RRSP or a TFSA? One would think that if no business is present, TOSI should not apply.

The CRA has illustrated a few examples that seem similar to the retirement scenarios I outlined above and did not analyze whether a business even exists. When pressed for more information, the CRA responded that for the purposes of those illustrations, they assumed there was a sufficient level of activity to consider the income derived from a business. It remains unclear how these passive investment corporations will be treated, but it appears the threshold level for considering them to be a business is quite low.

Reading this may frustrate those readers who have incorporated and own rental properties. Rental income is generally taxed as investment income as opposed to income from an active business because of its passive nature (unless you have five or more employees). This results in these corporations not being able to use the more favourable small business tax rates. It seems contradictory that the CRA in one circumstance sees your rental business as passive and thus not privy to lower corporate tax rates but, for purposes of TOSI, sees it as a business from which certain income may be subject to the TOSI rules. 

Reasonable return

If you are not able to fall into the more clearly defined exclusions, one last hope is the “reasonable return” exclusion for individuals 25 years of age or older (there is a more restrictive reasonable return test for individuals aged 18 to 24). However, this exclusion has probably the vaguest criteria to satisfy.

The legislation stipulates that you meet this exclusion if the income received is “reasonable” when regarding factors such as:

1. Work performed
2. Property contributed
3. Risks assumed
4. Total amounts paid/payable
5. Other relevant factors

What is reasonable is incredibly subjective. The CRA has provided some basic guidance on their website. The guidance provided is useful in determining whether or not the individual should be receiving income at all. However, as soon as you answer in the affirmative, the question of “how much?” remains unanswered. How much work or risk is required per dollar of remuneration? If you are planning remuneration in advance, how confident can you be that the income you want to pay would meet this exception? Is $100,000 too high, or could you have paid more?

It is very difficult based on a vague set of factors to quantify what level of income is acceptable. It would be wise to try to meet one of the other exclusions and not rely on this one. 

TOSI story – Chapters remain to be written

If you have managed to read this far, you likely have realized TOSI is still very complex - even with the various clarifying statements and Rob's explanations. In all honesty, I had to ask Rob to clarify for me certain parts of his discussion.

TOSI's application is also very case-specific, and it requires a thorough understanding of your business and the role certain individuals play within it. It has become more important than ever to speak with your tax advisor. With proper planning, a good tax practitioner will ensure that your corporate structure and remuneration planning is done properly to reduce any potential TOSI impact.

I anticipate that we will write another TOSI update article in the future to discuss how the CRA is enforcing these rules. This will start to become clear once the CRA begins to issue reassessments, and taxpayers go to court to challenge those reassessments.

Due to the complexity of the TOSI rules, we won’t address any specific questions on this blog post in the comments section. You need to speak with your accountant who is aware of your specific fact situation. In the meantime, make sure you are keeping proper records.

BDO Canada LLP senior tax accountant Robert Wyka is based in Markham and can be reached at rwyka@bdo.ca.

The content on this blog has been carefully prepared, but it has been written in general terms and should be seen as broad guidance only. The blog cannot be relied upon to cover specific situations and you should not act, or refrain from acting, upon the information contained therein without obtaining specific professional advice. Please contact BDO Canada LLP to discuss these matters in the context of your particular circumstances. BDO Canada LLP, its partners, employees and agents do not accept or assume any liability or duty of care for any loss arising from any action taken or not taken by anyone in reliance on the information on this blog or for any decision based on it.

Please note the blog posts are time sensitive and subject to changes in legislation.

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The Revised Tax On Split Income Rules

On December 13, 2017 the Liberals released a new and improved version of their income sprinkling/tax on split income (“TOSI”) proposals. The government’s backgrounder stated, “the revised draft legislative proposals include changes to better target and simplify their application”. I can agree with the targeted assertion; as some overly expansive drafting was corrected, but simplification, not in my world.

The new rules while more objective than the previous version, are still very subjective. In my opinion these revisions will just create more angst among the small business owners caught by these proposals and will result in court cases for years. Add in that these rules were released the week before the Christmas holidays and not issued in conjunction with the passive income rules that are supposedly to come in the next budget (planning for dividends may be dependent or intertwined with the final passive rules) and I don’t think the Finance Minister will be winning any politician of the year awards from any private business associations.

In my opinion, all these TOSI rules would not be necessary if the government would have simply disallowed income sprinkling for anyone under age 25 that that does not work full-time in a business and for all Canadians (whether business owners or not) started taxing spouses as a single-family unit. But then, nobody asked me.

Today, I will summarize whom I see as the winners and losers of these new proposals and those caught in the grey area. Finally, I will provide some details on the revisions to the TOSI rules.

As this legislation is new and will likely still require some clarification, I want to make it clear that this post is solely for general information purposes. You should consult with your professional advisor, so they can review these proposals based on your specific fact situation.

Scorecard

Winners

1. Business owners over 65

2. Individuals who inherited shares of a small business

3. Businesses where shares, votes and value are allocated evenly among family members and are not service businesses

4. Canadians who work at least 20 hours a week on a regular and continuous basis in the family business

5. Retired owners that were caught under the initial rules because they were considered related even though an arm’s length person now ran the corporation

Losers

1. Beneficiaries of shares held by Family Trusts

2. Professionals

3. Small businesses that provide services and do not sell products

4. Estate freezes recently undertaken and/or where there is large redemption value remaining in the preference shares issued upon the freeze

Unclear

1. Families were shares have already been distributed from a trust or were purchased upon incorporation and the parents have voting control

2. Estate freezes where most shares have been redeemed

The New Rules

The new rules are very detailed and I do not intend to regurgitate all of them here. I will summarize the rules only at a high level. For details and FAQ’s, please see this CRA link  (scroll half-way down the page to related products and you will see guidance and other more technical material).

The new rules have four key exclusions: 1. An excluded share test 2. Excluded business test 3. Reasonable rate of return test and 4. Retirement and inheritance exclusion.

I will summarize them below and discuss how they may affect you.

Excluded Shares- The share ownership test

The TOSI rules will not apply where you have attained the age of 25 and all of the following conditions are met:

• You own at least 10% of the outstanding shares of a corporation in terms of votes and value and the corporation meets all the following conditions:

(a) It earns less than 90% of its income from the provision of services

(b) It is not a professional corporation

(c) All or substantially all its income is not derived from a related business

At first blush, this test seems like a god-send for private corporations where family members are shareholders and have attained the age of 25. However, in many cases the parents have the majority of the voting rights and may have significant value in preference shares as result of a prior reorganization or estate freeze. Where the issue is only votes, you may be able to reorganize your corporate share structure to meet this condition as the government has stated that even though the rules are applicable January 1, 2018, you have until December 31, 2018 to get your corporate house “in order”.

This rule will essentially preclude the use of family trusts for income splitting purposes other than the capital gains exemption. It is important to note, that the TOSI rules will not apply to capital gains on the sale of qualified farm or fishing property and to the sale of qualified small business corporations (“QSBC”). Most private corporation owners reading this blog post have shares that either qualify as QSBC shares, or can be made to qualify for the capital gains exemption through a purifying transaction (see this post I wrote on this topic). The exclusion for the sale of these shares is not age dependent (however, where an individual is under 18 and the sale is to a related party, the exemption will be problematic). Not that I want to look a gift horse in the mouth, but we have all these complex rules to prevent income sprinkling and you are still allowed to allocate the 2018 exemption amount of $848,252 to a minor?

Professional corporations are excluded, as they have been one of the main targets of the Liberals throughout this whole debacle. However, pay careful attention to the word “services”. At first glance you think services is just another arrow aimed at professionals, but services as written (it is not defined anywhere) would seem to include the services of a barber, gardener, massage therapist, computer consultant etc. Many small businesses may not meet this exclusion if they don’t earn at least 11% of their revenue from the sale of products. In my opinion, this provision may “blow-back at the government once it is better understood; assuming the literal interpretation is the proper reading. It should be noted that if you and your spouse/children 18 years old and over meet the labour criteria for the excluded business test based discussed below, then having a service business will not in itself preclude you from income sprinkling.

The related business in (c) above is just a provision to ensure a service business does not impose another business between it and the family member to get around the rules, although, some tax observers are concerned this provision could accidentally cause issues where shares are held through a holding company. This is one area that the Liberals will need to clarify.

Excluded Business –The labour test

The TOSI rules will not apply where you are 18 or over and have been employed by an excluded business, which is “a business in which the individual is actively engaged on a regular, continuous and substantial basis in the taxation year of the individual in which an amount is received or in any five previous taxation years". The CRA states that “To access the exclusion in respect of five previous years of labour contributions, it is not necessary that the five previous years be consecutive or after 2017. Any combination of five previous years would satisfy the test”. The test will also account for businesses’ that are seasonal, such that the test will apply to the seasonal period

Finally, the CRA says “To provide greater certainty (but without limiting the generality of the test), an individual who works an average of 20 hours per week during the part of the year that a business operates will be deemed to be actively engaged on a regular, continuous and substantial basis for the year. If an individual does not meet the 20-hour threshold, then it will be a question of fact as to whether the individual was actively engaged in the business on a regular, continuous and substantial basis. However, even if an individual aged 25 or older does not meet the regular, continuous and substantial threshold, the TOSI will apply to amounts derived from a related business only to the extent that they are unreasonable (i.e., only the unreasonable excess will be subject to the TOSI)”.

This labour test is a fairly clear bright-line test; you must work over 20 hours per week for at least five previous years or you get into a subjective reasonability test that will likely result in most amounts being in excess of reasonability.

The CRA provided some guidance in the materials stating that records such as timesheets, schedules and logbooks will be sufficient to confirm the hours a person worked.

Reasonable Return on Capital Test

There are two tests within this exclusion:

1. Safe Harbour Test

2. Reasonable return test

Safe Harbour Test

Where an individual 18-24 years of age has contributed capital, and does not qualify for the excluded share or excluded business exclusions, they may still qualify for a “safe harbor exemption” (No that does not mean you take your money and hide it in a safe harbor in the Turks and Caicos).

It means that you will be provided an exclusion from TOSI income to the extent of your capital contribution x a prescribed rate (currently only 1%). i.e. If you contribute $100,000, you multiply the $100,000 x 1%=$1,000 and you can exclude $1,000. To be a blunt bean counter, this exclusion is pretty much useless, since a) The reality is that in probably 95% of the cases, most shareholders only contribute $100 or less to purchase their shares and b) as noted above, the low prescribed rate means even if you did contribute a fair bit of capital, such as $100k, your exclusion is still a meager $1,000.

Reasonable Return Test

For those 25 years of age and older, this very subjective test says that a reasonableness test is to be applied to such factors as:

• Work performed 
• Risks assumed by the individual in the business 
• Any other factors that may be relevant

Your guess is as good as mine as to how this would be applied. Consider Mr. A who is a shareholder and works full time in his business. His daughter also a shareholder, is a computer science student who comes up with a software application that leads to over one million dollars in new revenue for the business. What is her "reasonable" entitlement to dividends?

Retirement and Inheritance

The initial drafting of the proposals appeared to have inadvertently caused the TOSI rules to apply to retired private corporation owners and Canadians who had inherited private corporation shares. The new proposals have addressed these concerns.

The new TOSI rules provide the following exemptions:

1. Where an active owner-manager (someone who met the labour contribution rules) reaches age 65, the TOSI rules will not apply to their spouse (no matter their age). Note: these rules do not mean you can split your dividends like you do your pension income. They only allow you to pay dividends to your spouse who is not excluded by any of the provisions and avoid the TOSI rules where you are 65 or over.

2. If you are over 18 and inherit shares in a private corporation from someone who met the TOSI one of the TOSI exclusions, those shares will continue to be excluded.

Salary

The new rules do not apply to salary. However, there has always been a reasonableness test for salaries paid to family members vis a vie what would you pay an arm’s length persons and that rule will still apply.

Prescribed loans

The new rules do not appear to prevent the use of prescribed loans where you purchase public securities. See this blog and speak to your advisor about whether this strategy would be advisable for your situation.

At this time, I am not entirely comfortable answering questions on these proposals, until we have further clarity. So, if you ask a question or provide a comment on this post, I may not answer the question or will couch the answer. So please don’t expect definitive answers if you ask a question.

This site provides general information on various tax issues and other matters. The information is not intended to constitute professional advice and may not be appropriate for a specific individual or fact situation. It is written by the author solely in their personal capacity and cannot be attributed to the accounting firm with which they are affiliated. It is not intended to constitute professional advice, and neither the author nor the firm with which the author is associated shall accept any liability in respect of any reliance on the information contained herein. Readers should always consult with their professional advisors in respect of their particular situation. Please note the blog post is time sensitive and subject to changes in legislation or law.

The Two Certainties in Life: Death and Taxes

We have all heard the famous quote “In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes”. Did you know the person who uttered this profound statement was none other than Benjamin Franklin?

This blog post and the two follow-up posts, will share with you the income tax consequences of Benjamin's second certainty, the always popular subject of dying.

Deemed Disposition

Ignoring the fact that the U.S. Income Tax Code in the 1700's may have been slightly different than today, Franklin's view on death and taxes was that of an American. This distinction is very important. The U.S. tax system taxes you on the value of your estate upon death, while Canada deems you to have disposed of your property at death, at its fair market value, which triggers income tax on any unrealized capital gains (paper gains).

I will explain this “deemed disposition” in greater detail later on, but simply put, if you own shares in say Bell Canada that are worth $40 upon your death, that you purchased for $15, you/your estate are deemed to have a $25 ($40-$15) capital gain per share, if your assets are not left to your spouse.

Probate Fees

Depending upon the province in which you live, you may also be subject to probate fees (Estate Administration tax in Ontario) on the value of your estate at death. However, notwithstanding people plan around probate fees, often to their detriment; these fees/taxes are typically fairly immaterial to an estate in Canada (1.5% versus 40% Estate tax in the U.S. or higher, depending upon the state and size of your estate). Here is a summary of the probate fees for each province. For purposes of this blog, and the two follow-up blog posts I have written, I am just going to focus on the “deemed disposition” upon death and ignore probate fees.

Personal vs Corporate

 

It has been my experience that most people are not clear about how the income tax system works upon their death. In particular, shareholders of private corporations are often surprised when I inform them that any increase in value of the shares of their private corporate shareholdings are subject to income tax upon their death (they often think the yearly corporate tax they pay has covered this liability). This does not even account for the fact that without proper tax planning, there could be double taxation in respect of their corporate shareholdings.

In order to deal with the distinction between the personal and corporate income tax consequences, I have made this topic a three-part blog series. Next week, I will deal with the personal income tax consequences of you dying, and the following week, I will discuss the income tax consequences of dying when you own shares in a private corporation.

Just Die First

 

You can avoid all these messy income tax complexities upon death by just dying first☺ if you are married or in a common-law relationship. This is because if you leave your property to your spouse or common-law spouse, the property passes to them at the adjusted cost base of the property and the capital gain is deferred until the surviving spouse or common-law partner dies, or they sell the property during their lifetime.

Consequently, the deemed disposition rules typically only apply in the following three situations:

(1) Your estate elects out of the automatic transfer to your spouse (this can be done on a property by property basis).

(2) You are the last to die spouse.

(3) You leave your property to your children or other beneficiary, instead of your spouse.

Next week, I will discuss in greater detail, the personal income tax consequences of passing away. 

This site provides general information on various tax issues and other matters. The information is not intended to constitute professional advice and may not be appropriate for a specific individual or fact situation. It is written by the author solely in their personal capacity and cannot be attributed to the accounting firm with which they are affiliated. It is not intended to constitute professional advice, and neither the author nor the firm with which the author is associated shall accept any liability in respect of any reliance on the information contained herein. Readers should always consult with their professional advisors in respect of their particular situation.