Wealth Planning

After working to understand your short- and long-run goals, we will collaborate with a passionate, experienced team of BMO Private Wealth specialists to create your customized and complete wealth plan. Together, we will advise you regarding tax considerations, create trusts if required, and help you plan and protect your estate and legacy.

Our broad network of BMO Private Wealth subject matter experts brings you tremendous financial bench strength:

• Will reviewers
• Tax planners
• Asset managers
• Trust and estate planners
• Insurance specialists
• Credit consultants
• Private Banking professionals
• Business and Commercial Bankers
• Investment bankers
• Risk management experts
• Business succession specialists
• Strategic philanthropy consultants

We will also work closely with your own lawyer or accountant – or we can recommend a trusted professional if needed – to ensure that you receive streamlined, coordinated and tailored retirement, estate and tax planning services.

With the specialized assistance of our BMO Private Wealth partners, we can add significant value when helping you and your loved ones to prepare for major milestones or manage periods of transition; for example, when you:

• Get married or divorced
• Inherit money or win a lottery
• Start a family
• Buy or renovate your home or vacation property
• Decide to fund an education
• Buy or sell a practice or business
• Change your career
• Plan for and enter your retirement years
• Have an accident or are diagnosed with a major illness
• Wish to make a major charitable contribution

Our team will constantly adjust your plan and banking services to external conditions and life transitions to ensure your goals are proactively, strategically managed.

We can help you to plan astutely so you can live the retirement you envision. This involves more than simply setting aside enough money to last 30 years or more.

We will:

• Analyze your finances, pension plan, insurance policies, employment retirement package and the income you can expect from Canada Pension Plan (CPP) and Old Age Security (OAS).
• Help you plan to generate a tax-efficient income stream from your investment portfolio.
• Design tailored cash-flow management strategies for you.
• Examine your family dynamics, health/longevity expectations, lifestyle, and community commitments.
• Review any budgeting or lifestyle changes that may be needed.
• If you are a business owner, liaise with BMO Private Wealth Business Advisory specialists to discuss preparing your company for sale or transfer, and the potential role it may play in your retirement lifestyle
• Integrate all aspects of your financial picture to simplify your retirement plan.
• Help you create a legacy for your loved ones and chosen charities.
• Consider setting up a family trust and/or private foundation.
• Discuss why you are retiring, how ready you feel for this new life stage, and how you envision your retirement unfolding – where you plan to live, what you plan to do, and major expenses you anticipate, such as your grandchildren’s education or a major trip.

You’ve accumulated substantial wealth over the years. Working together with our trusted partners at BMO Estate & Insurance Advisory Services, we can recommend strategies to help you preserve and enhance your wealth before, during and after retirement and then transfer it tax-efficiently to your loved ones.

We will collaborate with you to help in context of your overall wealth management, whether you’re focused on:

• Growing your investments in a tax-efficient way
• Leaving a tax-efficient legacy to your heirs
  • Insurance is an excellent tool to preserve and enhance the value of your estate, minimize taxes, fund health care expenses, and support your charitable giving goals.
• Ensuring that you and your family have adequate insurance coverage:
  • Critical illness insurance
  • Disability insurance
  • Long-term care insurance
  • Whole life insurance (traditional whole life, universal life, variable life and variable universal life
  • Term life insurance
  • Guaranteed life annuities
  • Business insurance (commercial property, general liability, professional liability, cybersecurity, directors and officers, crime, business interruption, and more)

Insurance services and products are offered through BMO Estate Insurance Advisory Services Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of BMO Nesbitt Burns Inc.

We can help you to make a real difference in the world and experience the personal rewards of shaping your legacy by:

• Coaching you on your options and discussing philanthropic strategies that will benefit you from a tax perspective while bringing your charities the greatest advantages.
• Encouraging you to get the whole family involved in giving. We will discuss the values your family members share. Perhaps one son or daughter could manage the family foundation and receive a fee for doing so.
• Presenting your philanthropic options and discussing which one is best for you and your family.

Through our strategic, process-driven approach, we will help you to translate important personal values into a philanthropic investment in an organization or cause that resonates with your beliefs.

Giving through a private foundation

A private foundation is the most highly structured and personal form of long-term giving, and the best suited for strategic philanthropy. Our team can help with all related tasks, including Canada Revenue Agency charity returns, meeting preparations, recipient charities and tax compliance issues.

The BMO Charitable Giving Program

This program lets you contribute to a donor advised fund administered by the Charitable Gift Funds Canada Foundation and managed by BMO Nesbitt Burns. This Foundation is an independent, non-profit charitable organization and is registered as a public foundation with the Canada Revenue Agency. That means you receive cost-efficient and tax-maximizing benefits.

The BMO Charitable Giving Program gives you flexibility in how you manage and execute your charitable giving strategy in a cost-effective manner. You save time because you leave all the administrative responsibilities to the program’s charitable partner, Gift Funds Canada. You’re relieved from the responsibilities of managing, reporting and making distributions to your qualified charitable beneficiaries.