Estate Tax Calculator for Business Owners

Each asset is projected to age 88, then the rule that fires at death is applied. Half of a capital gain is taxable; registered accounts come into income whole. Everything is taxed at the top marginal rate in Quebec, --, which is where an estate of this size lands.

Private company shares

Non-registered investments

Registered accounts

Real estate

Probate

Ontario charges 1.5% of the estate's value above $50,000 when a will is probated. Assets passing outside the estate, by beneficiary designation or joint ownership, are not counted in practice; this estimate counts everything. Quebec charges no equivalent on a notarial will.

Recapture of depreciation on a rental property, the alternative minimum tax, and any other income in the year of death are ignored. Confirm the treatment of your own assets with your CPA.

Only the business line changes between the two columns. Everything else is identical.

The growth that passes to the next generation is not tax-free forever. It is taxed when they dispose of their shares or die. A freeze defers and shifts the tax; it does not erase it. The frozen column also assumes the freezor's preferred shares are redeemed for the spending entered, which reduces the value at death.

Premiums come from rate grids built in September 2026 from rates read out of insurer software. Rates at five-year ages are measured; ages in between are interpolated.

Last-to-die pricing is derived from the single-life grid using an equivalent-age adjustment fitted on quoted couples. Couples the same age, or far from those profiles, carry more error.

When there is a corporation the policy is modelled as corporately owned and paid. The corporation receives the death benefit free of income tax. Getting it out to the estate is the part that costs money. The death benefit less the policy's adjusted cost basis credits the capital dividend account and can be paid out as a tax-free capital dividend. The rest is a taxable dividend.

The face amount is solved so that this net figure equals the bill. Adjusted cost basis is the premiums paid less the cumulative net cost of pure insurance, derived from illustrations at issue ages 45 and 65 rather than assumed flat.

After death the cost base of everything the estate holds has stepped up to fair market value, so selling personal investments to pay the bill triggers no further tax. Money still inside the corporation is different: it can only reach the estate as a dividend, and that dividend is taxed.

That second layer, on top of the capital gains tax already charged on the shares, is the double taxation a post-mortem strategy exists to remove. A subsection 164(6) loss carryback or a pipeline can eliminate one of the two layers. Those strategies require a tax advisor and are out of scope here; the plain case is shown.

Being clear about the gaps matters more than adding decimal places to the parts that are modelled.

It applies today's tax rates across the whole horizon, which is the least defensible assumption in the model given the decades involved. It ignores the alternative minimum tax, recapture on depreciable property, US estate tax exposure on US assets, foreign property, and any shareholders' agreement that forces a buy-sell at death. It assumes a spouse survives to inherit everything at the first death and that nothing is left to anyone else before then. It treats registered accounts as taxed at the last death, which assumes a spousal rollover at the first. It counts every asset in the estate for probate, when designations and joint ownership usually take some out. It assumes the corporation still exists at the last death and has the surplus to pay a dividend.

Post-mortem strategies. The liquidation path shows the plain case: capital gains tax on the shares at death, then a taxed dividend to get the money out. A subsection 164(6) loss carryback or a pipeline can remove one of those layers. They require a tax advisor to implement and are not modelled.

The freeze columns. A freeze shifts growth to the next generation; it does not erase the tax on it. The comparison shows this one death only. Whether a freeze suits you depends on your age, your income needs, your family and your advisors' view, none of which a calculator can weigh.

Every number here is illustrative and generated from stated assumptions. It is education, not advice, and not a substitute for your CPA or tax lawyer.