Any successful estate plan whereby the next generation has been introduced into the corporate structure for private companies should contemplate a unanimous shareholders’ agreement as the final step.

This sets out the rights and obligations of the shareholders as they relate to each other and the subject company. From an estate-planning perspective, it also serves as a “family constitution” for future generations once Mom and Dad are no longer in the picture. That way, having a “rule book” as to how the business should be run could potentially avoid any sibling in-fighting, which only serves to hurt the business in the long run.

Samantha Prasad is a Partner in Minden Gross LLP’s Tax Group. Her practice focuses primarily on corporate international and high net worth tax planning.Samantha’s clients vary from multi-national corporations to family business owner/managers. As such, her practice is varied to include tax aspects of corporate finance, corporate reorganizations, mergers and acquisitions, as well as comprehensive business succession planning and international structures.

Samantha is an accomplished author, having co-authored the 3rd edition of Tax and Family Business Succession Planning. Additionally, she is the co-editor of various other CCH Canadian Limited tax publications including the Canada Income Tax Guide, Wealth Management Guide, and Tax Planning for Small Business Guide. Samantha is a regular contributor to TaxNotes (Wolters Kluwer) and is a Contributing Editor to The TaxLetter (MPL Communications). Samantha is a frequent lecturer for professional and commercial organizations, businesses, and conferences, such as the Law Society of Ontario, the Ontario Bar Association, STEP Canada, and Federated Press. She has also served as a guest speaker for the Osgoode Faculty of Law LLM (Corporate Taxation) program.

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