William (Bill) H. Cooper*

Bill has over 50 years of tax and financial experience including, 8 years in his first career working at multiple divisions of a multi-national forest products company. During this time as a financial analyst and controller, Bill routinely analyzed the financial viability of major manufacturing facilities and provided regular analysis of operating results to the senior officers of this public company.

Bill has practiced as a tax lawyer in Vancouver, Ottawa and Toronto. He has advised public companies and private, owner-managed businesses, as well as over 100 First Nations. During his time in Toronto with the tax group of Canada’s largest law firm, he advised public companies on some of Canada’s largest tax effectivetax effective financing structures.

While in Ottawa, Bill worked at the most senior levels of the Canada Revenue Agency and the Department of Finance, preparing Advance Income Tax Rulings and advising both the Minister of National Revenue and the Minister of Finance on new tax legislation and tax cases of national importance.

Bill’s work with First Nations has included First Nations in B.C., Alberta, Ontario, the Yukon and the Northwest Territories. This work includes facilitating their establishment of tax effective investment structures, the structuring of First Nation settlement trusts and the creation of related joint venture business investment structures. Bill also presented the paper “First Nation Settlement Trusts – The Path to Self Sufficiency” to the 2014 Aboriginal Financial Officers Association of Canada. As part of his body of work with First Nations, Bill has advised dozens of First Nations on the implementation of resource development participation agreements, settlement trusts and limited partnership agreements, many involving $100 millions of investments.

Bill has lectured and written on a wide variety of tax matters for professional associations and independent tax advisory organizations. He also taught Tax Law and Policy at Carleton University.

Bill is the co-founder of Meritas Canada Tax, an affiliation of over 30 tax and estate lawyers practicing from coast-to-coast in Canada with law firms that are members of Meritas Law Firms Worldwide affiliation.

Speaking Engagements

“Exit Strategies: The Purchase and Sale of a Business”; The Entrepreneur, April 2017

Editor-in-Chief and Host of TaxMentor’s Monthly Owner-Manager Tax Update Webinar – 2003 to date

Estate and Succession Tax Planning Update & The 2015 Top Tax Planning Issues – Burnaby / New West CPA Chapter – Oct. 17, 2015

Family Businesses – Business in Vancouver – Business Excellence Series – Oct. 15, 2015

Estate and Succession Tax Planning Update – Vancouver CPA Chapter – Sept. 17, 2015

Planning for the Succession of the Family Business – Kelowna – Sept. 11, 2015

2015 Hot Tax Strategies & Taxation of Farm Transfers – Fraser Valley CPA Chapter – Feb. 28, 2015

Trust and Estates Updates & Business Succession; CPA Seminar, November 29, 2014

Cross Border Travellers – Tax Consequences – Boughton Law Corporation – May 15, 2014

Tax Update for Non-Tax Lawyers; CPD Seminar, April 24, 2014

First Nation Trusts – A Path to Self Sufficiency – FOA Canada National Conference, February 26, 2014

Business Transition Planning for Owner-Manager Businesses; CIBC Wood Gundy, Oct. 2, Nov. 6, 2013

The Taxation of Corporations – A Checklist, December 7, 2012

Trusts Under Attack – The Trust Checklist, May 2010

CLE Residential Real Estate – Tax Checklist, December 2009

STEP Canada’s 11th National, June 18 and 19, 2009

CCH Webinar on Tips and Traps, February 5, 2008