04/ Prosper
You've built a practice. Your professional corporation should be building wealth.
Most lawyers who practise through a professional corporation are using it for the basics — tax deferral, maybe some retained earnings. That's a start. But a PC offers significantly more than most lawyers realize, and the window to take full advantage of it isn’t open forever.
This is where the planning work shifts from protection to wealth building. Most advisors see one piece of your financial picture. I see how the pieces fit together — and where the gaps are. The opportunities that surface are often the ones your other advisors aren't really positioned to find.
Proactive planning is what turns a demanding job into an asset and a legacy.
The most tax-efficient wealth building tool most lawyers aren't using is their PC.
How you pay yourself matters as much as how much you earn.
The flexibility to structure how you're paid is a massive opportunity — and most lawyers don't use it deliberately. Salary versus dividends. Timing of draws. Pension contributions. The way you structure compensation through a PC has a direct impact on personal tax, insurance eligibility, entitlement to valuable government benefits, and long-term wealth accumulation. Most of those decisions get made by default rather than by design.
Retained earnings sitting in the PC are an opportunity most lawyers miss.
Corporate-owned life insurance lets the PC accumulate wealth in a tax-advantaged environment. Premiums are paid with after-tax corporate dollars — taxed at a significantly lower rate than personal income. The policy builds cash value inside the corporation. At death, the benefit flows to the corporation tax-free and can be distributed to your estate through the capital dividend account, largely free of personal tax. For lawyers with retained earnings sitting in the PC, this is often the most efficient place to deploy that capital.
There's a pension option most lawyers don't know about.
For lawyers who qualify, an Individual Pension Plan through the PC provides higher contribution limits than an RRSP and creates a deductible funding obligation for the corporation. The contribution room depends on age and income history — which is exactly why this is a conversation to have sooner rather than later.
The decisions you make now determine your options later.
The PC wealth strategies you put in place today — how earnings are structured, how capital is deployed, how wealth accumulates — are what create real financial flexibility down the road. A practice backed by deliberate planning gives you options: to weather a difficult stretch, to step back on your terms, to walk away with something that reflects what you built.