Otto-Hans Nowak

Practice Areas

At BLG, Hans turned to taxation and became a corporate tax lawyer after practicing for a few years as a corporate practitioner. After his return to Canada from his first stint of living in Hong Kong and setting up and managing a Hong Kong law office for three Canadian law firms, he decided to become a private client lawyer with a focus on international tax and trust planning.

By working for wealthy families (the “family” or “families”), Hans learnt to appreciate the many concerns and needs of these families and the many dangers that confront them which require pro-active action on the part of an adviser to protect the families and their family wealth. This led him to develop his concept of holistic global estate planning. While before legal tax avoidance was the main driver of any planning, now the main driver of planning became the protection of these families. Tax minimization became a mere bonus but still a welcome bonus of any planning. Hans insists that every family must be fully apprised of its options so that it can make an informed decision about its actions, and thereby its future. In his view, it is the obligation of an adviser to do his or her best to brief the family fully and in every respect.

Holistic global estate planning focuses on the family wealth and on the family itself. It starts with understanding the concerns, intentions, objectives and wishes of a family and their long-term goals and ends with an agreed plan of action. That plan, if adopted and implemented, will protect the family wealth through asset protection structures, facilitate the intergenerational transfer of the family wealth using the stewardship principle, preserve and develop the human capital and potential of the family through an appropriate family governance structure with family charter and the appropriate family policies, and avoid (to the extent possible) disputes among family members and recourse to courts. This concept places the ultimate responsibility and ultimate power over the family and the family wealth in the hands of the family itself and not in the hands of any corporate service provider.

While Hans places a special focus on holistic global estate planning, he also provides second opinions on the preparedness and the sufficiency of the protection of the family wealth of a wealthy family and its members and their respective families. He also comments on existing succession plans. He offers clients with Canadian connections possible ways to minimize Canadian income taxes depending upon their circumstances and facts. He plans for the migration of a family member to a high taxing jurisdiction such as Canada and minimizes the impact such a move may have on the family wealth and the operation of any offshore structure.

Very often planning for wealthy families and individuals involves team work because of the complexity of their situations. Hans and his team can be supporting members of such a team or assume a leading role as the client may request.

Having practiced law for over four decades, Hans has no plans to retire from professional life any time soon. He believes that his Canadian and global planning experience and his tax background can still add value to wealthy individuals and families who have not yet taken the time to consider a holistic plan for their protection and their family’s succession or who wish to have someone to have an independent look at their current structure to improve or adapt it where circumstances and facts have changed. These individuals and families can be confident that Hans will give them his full attention and his honest and proactive advice.

Areas of expertise

• Holistic Global Estate Planning for asset preservation
• Family Planning with family charters and family policies
• Canadian Income Tax Planning for wealthy clients

Professional involvement

• Member, Canadian Tax Foundation (CTF)
• Member, International Tax Planning Association (ITPA)
• Member, The Society for Trust and Estate Practitioners (STEP Canada)

Representative experience

• Advised multiple wealthy families on holistic global estate plans and related tax minimization strategies for their moves to Canada.
• Advised a wealthy businessman in Hong Kong on setting up a tax efficient trust structure for each of his adult children to allow them to benefit from their share of the inheritance to be left for them by their father together with the requisite wills in multiple jurisdictions. The foundation structure was suggested as an alternative structure if an adult child were to become resident in Canada and were to taint a trust structure by having inadvertently made a contribution to the trust and thereby making the offshore trust a deemed resident of Canada for tax purposes.
• Advised a wealthy European client on restructuring his North American business investment to be owned by sophisticated offshore trust and foundation structures taking into account the tax regime of the onshore country in which the client wanted to increase his investment and already had been carrying on business, using tax treaty planning to optimize the after tax income coming from offshore and applying domestic planning steps in the onshore country to benefit from the lower domestic tax rules normally reserved for residents of that country.
• Advised PRC clients on migrating their families to Canada but claiming the treaty tie breaker rules for the owner of the Chinese assets to avoid becoming a Canadian tax resident and setting up appropriate trust or foundation structures to hold his offshore and (to the extent possible) his PRC assets.
• Advised Southeast Asian clients on structuring their corporate investment in Canada by taking advantage of tax treaty planning.
• Advised a wealthy Chinese businessman and his family office on the set up of several sophisticated common law and civil law asset protection structures to counter future matrimonial and creditor claims as against himself and members of his family and preserve a large part of his assets for his children by using elements of a dynastic structure.