We can help you to preserve your wealth and transfer it successfully and tax-efficiently across multiple generations. Today, young people may not start earning well until their late 20s and need robust inheritances to compensate for the high cost of education and lack of economic opportunity, so we work to preserve intergenerational wealth for our clients’ families.

 

We will:

  • Ensure your wills are updated and that appropriate trusts are in place to secure the course of your wealth if complex family circumstances call for them.
  • Work with your accountant to structure your holdings tax-efficiently to minimize the presence of the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) and Internal Revenue Service (IRS) in your life and reserve your assets for your kids. 
  • Start a relationship with your children and/or your aging parent with a discovery call or a visit to learn their goals for the future.  

o   Open an account for them when they are ready, provide recommendations, and educate them on the fundamentals of investing and wealth planning, keeping the experience light and enjoyable.

o   Extend the same asset management fee to the entire household from age 18+, to help your loved ones begin to invest and plan to achieve major goals.

o   Be discreet and mindful of mutual privacy.

o   Explain why if certain investment ideas that may seem intriguing could be risky or ill-advised.

o   Help your family members move forward with informed decisions based on sound investing principles.

o   Provide education and strategies to deal with difficult markets and emotional bias. Including:

1.      The importance of being diversified

2.      Taking a long-term view- time, not timing matters most

  • Help your family manage conflict to avoid long-term challenges, keep lines of communication open, and prepare in advance for major life transitions. 
  • Help you implement sophisticated strategies such as an estate freeze to transfer your wealth to your heirs tax-effectively.
  •  Act as objective, caring advisors by your side to help you make rational decisions in family financial matters that are often fraught with emotion.
  •  If you are a business owner, we will:

o   Engage our in-house business valuation team to help you determine what your business is worth and how to compensate any children who are not in the business to equalize the bequest.

o   Secure potential buyers for your family business if no family members wish to manage it when you are ready to step away.

Tips on fostering wealth stewardship across generations

Successful wealth transfers start very early: Talk to your children about household finances and then include them in their teen years in conversations about the family wealth and investing.

 

Consider seeding a TFSA and/or a FHSA account with funds for your children or grandkids to help them start investing. Add increasing amounts as the kids get older and more confident to let them experience how it feels to control money and learn from mistakes within limited parameters. Too often, young people inherit large estates without knowing how much they will inherit and without having any experience managing money. The stress of managing a multi-million-dollar family fortune can paralyze young investors and trigger anxiety.