In the late 1990s, the New Westminster diocese ("territory") of the Anglican Church of Canada ("ACC") convened a synod ("council") in order to consider the question of whether clergy ought to bless same-sex unions. In 1998, the Diocese decided to permit, though not require, clergy to perform liturgical blessings for same-sex couples. In 2002, the […]
Last month, the Federal Court of Appeal, in Antle v Canada, 2010 FCA 280 [Antle 2010], upheld the Tax Court of Canada decision in Antle v. The Queen, 2009 TCC 465 [Antle 2009], finding that an offshore spousal trust was not valid. Both courts agreed that the primary purpose of the spousal trust was to […]
The only surprising thing about the recent Supreme Court of Canada ("SCC") decision in Quebec (Revenue) v Caisse Populaire Desjardins de Montmagny, [2009] 3 SCR 286 [CP Desjardins de Montmagny] is that the Quebec Superior Court ("QCSC") at first instance found in favour of the Crown in all three cases from which the appeals arose. The issue […]
Offshore trusts have become an essential element of successful tax planning. Trusts are used as tax planning vehicles as they are considered a separate legal entity from the individual. Thus, the income and assets of the trust are excluded from the individual’s estate for tax purposes. A previously successful, but now uncertain, strategy had used […]
Offshore trusts are major tax-planning and estate-planning tools which can be used to protect assets from taxation and to defer accrued capital gains for a long term. For all such planning tools to work, however, the "offshore" aspect of the trust—that is to say its non-Canadian residence—has to be a central feature of the structure. […]
Earlier this year, the Supreme Court of Canada ("SCC") concurrently released judgments in Madsen Estate v Saylor, 2007 SCC 18 [Madsen Estate], and Pecore v Pecore, 2007 SCC 17 [Pecore], a pair of cases regarding the disposition of monies from joint bank and investment accounts shared by a parent with an adult child. Through these two cases, the SCC clarified the […]
In 1994, in the case of Schmidt v Air Products Canada Ltd, [1994] 2 SCR 611 [Schmidt], the Supreme Court of Canada ("SCC") established a new direction for the law of pensions by holding that a pension trust is a classic trust, "subject to all applicable trust law principles." Commentators at the time argued that the […]