Tax Counsel for Accountants and Professional Advisors

Accountants are often the first advisors to recognize that a client’s transaction, ownership change, estate plan or CRA problem requires legal tax advice. Barr LLP works alongside accountants serving private businesses, not-for-profit organizations, entrepreneurs, families, estates and trusts. Our role is to add legal analysis, implementation and representation where needed, without displacing the accountant or interfering with the existing client relationship. We do not employ accountants or bookkeepers and do not provide routine tax-return preparation or filing.

An accountant may contact us when a client is:

1. Buying, selling or combining a business
2. Considering a share sale, asset sale, management buyout or family transfer
3. Buying out a shareholder or admitting a new owner
4. Planning an estate freeze, section 85 rollover, amalgamation or other corporate reorganization
5. Preparing for succession, retirement or a transfer to children or management
6. Reviewing whether shares qualify for the lifetime capital gains exemption
7. Establishing, administering or approaching the 21-year anniversary of a trust
8. Planning for tax arising on death or possible double taxation involving private-company shares
9. Responding to a CRA audit, proposal letter, assessment or reassessment
10. Considering a notice of objection, taxpayer-relief request or Tax Court appeal
11. Addressing mandatory-disclosure, bare-trust or other new reporting rules

Practical collaboration:

We confirm the scope and division of responsibilities at the outset, including who prepares valuations and calculations, who drafts elections or prescribed forms, and who prepares corporate, trust, transaction and filing documents. We focus on material issues, explain options in plain language, and coordinate with other Barr LLP lawyers where corporate, commercial, estate or litigation work is also required. We welcome early contact, particularly before a letter of intent, shareholder agreement, reorganization plan, or CRA response is finalized.

Inservices for accounting firms:

Barr LLP provides inservices for accounting firms on focused Canadian tax-law topics, tailored to the firm’s clients and the experience of its partners and staff. Topics may include bare trusts and trust reporting, recent changes in Canadian tax law, shareholder buyouts, corporate reorganizations, intergenerational business transfers, business-sale planning, estate freezes, post-mortem planning, mandatory-disclosure rules, and CRA disputes.

To discuss a client matter or arrange an inservice, contact Pam MacDonell directly. Email: pmacdonell@barrllp.com Phone: (587) 415-0411