Estate Planning Guide (2026)

Returns to file and the best estate year-end

Tax at death estimator

Eight steps to a complete estate plan

1. Take inventory

   List what you own and how each asset passes at death. Property in your name follows your will. Registered plans, TFSAs, pensions and insurance go to named beneficiaries, outside the will and outside probate. Jointly owned property passes to the survivor. A forgotten ex-spouse named on an old RRSP form inherits it, whatever your new will says.

2. Size the tax at death

   Canada has no inheritance tax. Instead, you are treated as selling everything at fair market value on death, and your RRSP or RRIF is added to your final return as income. Property that rolls to a spouse defers the tax to the second death. Your principal residence is usually exempt and a TFSA passes tax-free. The estimator above shows your own figures.

3. Put the Alberta trio in place

   Alberta plans rest on three documents. A will names who inherits and who administers. An enduring power of attorney lets someone manage your money if you lose capacity. A personal directive names who makes health and care decisions. Have a lawyer draft them, because home kits fail on witnessing and can break the spousal rollover. Without a will, Alberta's intestacy rules decide.

4. Choose your people

   Pick an executor who is organized, local and younger than you, and name an alternate. If you have children under 18, name guardians and add a testamentary trust, so a trustee manages their money until the ages you set. Without a will, a court picks the guardian and the Public Trustee oversees their share until 18. In blended families, a spousal trust can support your spouse and protect your children's share.

5. Route assets with care

   Name beneficiaries on registered plans and insurance. For a spouse, use a successor holder on a TFSA or a successor annuitant on a RRIF. Recheck designations after every life event, because they override your will. Joint ownership with a spouse usually works. With adult children it exposes the asset to their creditors and divorce. Alberta's probate fee tops out at $525 above $250,000, so do not bend your plan around it.

6. Fund the tax bill

   The tax is due within months, in cash, while the value sits in a house, a portfolio or a company. Permanent insurance can pre-fund it. Couples can use joint last-to-die cover, which pays at the second death, when the rollover ends, and usually costs less than two separate policies. A corporation can own the policy, so the benefit credits its capital dividend account. Compare options in the term vs permanent tool.

7. Business owner moves

   If a private company holds your wealth, planning is mostly corporate. A shareholders' agreement sets what happens to shares at death and how a buy-sell is funded. An estate freeze fixes today's value and passes future growth to family. The lifetime capital gains exemption covers up to $1,275,000 of gain on qualifying shares, and its 24-month holding test needs planning in advance. A pipeline or a 164(6) loss carryback avoids double tax.

8. Keep the plan alive

   Review the plan after a marriage, separation, birth, death, diagnosis, business sale, inheritance, new property or move, and every three to five years regardless. Tell your executor where the documents are. Keep a list of digital assets and a letter of wishes. In Alberta, divorce cancels gifts to a former spouse in a will, but marriage no longer revokes a will, so do not rely on either.