Fast Forward - March 10, 2026 - Structure Wealthy Business Owners Use to Legally Reduce Taxes

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This video walks through a conversation with a business owner thinking about the eventual sale of his operating company and the taxation of his capital gains. In his case, the spouse and children were not involved in the business. In Canada, owners of qualifying businesses may be eligible for the Lifetime Capital Gains Exemption (LCGE), which currently allows over $1.2 million of gains on the sale of business shares to be received tax-free. However, many businesses are structured in a way that limits the use of that exemption to a single individual. In this video, we explore how structuring business ownership through a family trust can amplify the benefit of the same exemption across a family. We also touch on how a holding company can fit into this structure, allowing profits to be moved from the operating company into a separate entity where capital can be preserved and redeployed for long-term family wealth planning. The way a business is structured today can determine how much of the eventual sale proceeds a family ultimately keeps.