You have no doubt heard about the two certainties in life: death and taxes. As the Canadian population ages, more of us are focusing on that day when we won’t be here anymore.

Estate planning has become an increasingly popular topic. Ignoring estate planning could make things difficult, and expensive, for your loved ones after you’re gone.

What is estate planning? Quite simply, estate planning is the process of structuring your affairs to preserve your wealth and to transfer, in an orderly fashion, what’s left at the time of your death to those you wish, whether they are your family, friends, partners, or your favourite charity.

You should identify how to rearrange your affairs and then actually make those changes. For some, it may simply involve making some minor changes to an existing will, and for others it may involve some strategic planning, such as setting up a trust, purchasing life insurance, or completing an estate freeze.

Preserving your wealth generally means that you wish to protect your hard-earned money from the tax collector. By employing some of the ideas that are presented in this book, thousands of dollars could ultimately be saved in tax, which will allow you to pass on more of your money at the time of your death to your heirs.

Estate planning is a comprehensive field that involves the skills of different experts who specialize in income tax, life insurance, estate law, family law, powers of attorney and more. Of course, this book cannot cover all the intricacies of estate planning, however a basic understanding of the issues will allow you to identify when the help of an expert is needed.