Corporate Property Wills = Good Business

First of all, do you have a Will? If not, you should! But if you own a private corporation, you should consider having two. In Ontario, you are allowed to have a separate corporate properties Will, which deals exclusively with the shares you own in your company and/or loans owing from your company to you. This can result in a substantial savings on death. Your regular Will is probably going to have to be submitted for probate (which means the government values your property and charges you $15.00 for every $1,000 of assets which flow through that Will). You don't usually need probate to deal with private company shares, so the idea is to have a separate corporate Will, so that the value of your company-related assets do not get factored into the calculation of your total assets during the probate process. The saving is 1.5% of the value in the corporation at the time of death. For those of you who have accumulated value in your companies, this is an excellent and fairly straight-forward strategy to keep more of your hard-earned money in the hands of your beneficiaries. Planning ahead, even for death, makes good business sense.