ATTENTION: FOR INCORPORATED FORESTRY, CONSTRUCTION, OIL, GAS, MINING, AGGREGATE, AND FARMING Business Owners With $500K+ IN RETAINED EARNINGS
You spent decades building this business. The next 30 months decide how much of it you keep.
Whether you plan to sell to a competitor, pass it to family, or wind down on your own terms, the tax outcome is set long before the deal. I've run a company like yours, and I've completed hundreds of succession plans since 2010. There is a right sequence, and it starts 30 months out.
Fill in a short form below and get free access to the 30 Month Exit Checklist, an introductory video that walks through what's actually at stake, and a no-obligation Exit Diagnostic Review that shows you, in your own numbers, what happens to your money now and at exit.
Summit Plains Legacy Solutions specializes in exit and succession planning for owner-operated businesses in Western Canada's resource and heavy industries.
What makes us different:
Advice from someone who has made payroll. Michael ran a heavy civil construction and forestry company with 80 employees from 2003 to 2017 before advising owners full time.
Insurance-first, rules-as-written planning. No aggressive schemes, no promises about beating the CRA. Structure and sequence, done early enough to matter.
Deep experience across all five exit paths: competitor sale, open market sale, employee buyout, family transition, and wind-down.
Licensed in Alberta and British Columbia, working with owners in forestry, heavy civil, oil and gas, mining, aggregate, and farming.
ABOUT MICHAEL
Most people who want to advise you on your exit have never owned anything. Michael Tolmie has.
Grew up in a forestry family whose business was founded in 1973, then built and ran his own heavy civil construction and forestry company from 2003 to 2017, with 80 employees at its peak.
Has priced work at midnight, personally guaranteed equipment loans, and made payroll in hard winters. Has built businesses before advising others on how to exit theirs.
Michael started doing succession work in 2010 while still running his company, because he was living the problem himself. Since then he has completed hundreds of succession plans for loggers, road builders, pit operators, drilling contractors, and farmers, including time as the first hire in a national accounting firm's succession practice.
We're not a sales team. The first step is finding out whether you're a good fit, and whether the 30 month window still gives you room to act.
WHAT THE CHECKLIST COVERS
By claiming the free checklist, you'll find out:
Whether your corporation would pass the 24 month test that decides if you keep the Lifetime Capital Gains Exemption, worth up to $1.25 million per shareholder.
Why two owners can accept identical offers and walk away with a $7 million difference, and which side of that table your company sits on.
How a $250,000 revenue slip in your final years erases roughly $600,000 of exit price at a typical four times multiple.
What happens to payroll, the bank, and your family's income if your health takes you out of the business for a month.
How to treat all your children fairly when one runs the operation and the others don't, without forcing a sale of the land or the iron.
What the deemed disposition rules mean for your estate, and why the tax bill can come due whether or not anything was actually sold.
WHAT'S THE MAIN FOCUS IN YOUR BUSINESS RIGHT NOW?
What will your exit actually cost?
Most owners have never seen the number. Between the deemed disposition rules, the difference between an asset sale and a share sale, and an exemption that can be lost 24 months before you even find a buyer, the gap between a planned exit and an unplanned one is routinely seven figures. Not because anyone did anything wrong. Because nobody did anything at all.
Is your family actually protected?
If you're the one who prices the work, deals with the bank, and holds the key relationships, then your health is the largest unwritten risk on the balance sheet. A month in a hospital bed shouldn't threaten payroll or your family's income. Properly structured insurance is what stands between those two things.
What's your succession plan?
Most owners don't have one on paper, yet the exit tax on death or sale can undo decades of growth, and in a family transition, an equal split can be deeply unfair to the child who built the equity. Every one of the five exit paths rewards the owner who starts early.
The Lifetime Capital Gains Exemption can shelter up to $1.25 million of gain per shareholder, but CRA looks back 24 months before your sale to decide if you qualify. Fail that test and there is no fixing the past. Cleanup takes about six months. That's the 30 month window.
HOW I'LL HELP
Show you exactly where your company stands against the exemption test today, in your actual numbers, not in theory.
Sequence the corporate cleanup so the 24 month lookback is clean when a buyer shows up, keeping the share sale option and the exemption on the table.
Structure key person and corporate owned life insurance so a health event indemnifies the company instead of ending it, and so your estate's tax bill gets paid without selling land or equipment in a hurry.
Make family transitions fair, using tools like corporate owned life insurance to create an inheritance for children outside the business while the operation passes whole to the one who runs it.
Map your exit across all five paths, competitor, open market, employees, family, or wind-down, so you choose the ending instead of defaulting into one.
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
What makes Summit Plains different from other advisors?
Michael has owned and run the kind of business you own. He built a heavy civil and forestry company to 80 employees before advising full time, and he works insurance-first, using the rules as written rather than aggressive schemes that invite trouble years later. The advice comes from the other side of the table.
Why should I worry about exit planning now if I'm two or three years out?
Because the single most valuable tax provision available to you is decided by a 24 month lookback, and reorganizing a company takes about six months. That's 30 months of lead time. If you're 24 to 36 months from exit, you're inside the window right now, and options expire quietly, month by month.
I already have an accountant. Do I still need this?
Yes, and your accountant stays involved. Accountants focus on reporting and compliance. This work is the forward planning layer: exit structure, insurance funding, and sequencing, built early enough that your accountant and lawyer can execute it cleanly. Many clients take the diagnostic findings straight to their own accountant, and that's fine.
Are you just going to sell me insurance?
Insurance is often part of the answer, because it's the cleanest tool for funding tax bills, protecting against key person risk, and equalizing family inheritances. But the diagnostic review is a factual look at your numbers first. If insurance isn't the right tool for your situation, you'll hear that too.
What happens after I download the checklist?
You'll be taken to a short introductory video where Michael walks through the 30 month window and the five exit paths. From there you can book your free Exit Diagnostic Review to apply it to your own numbers.
Is there a cost or obligation?
No. The review is free and confidential. You bring your financials, Michael shows you where you stand and what inaction costs. Some owners work with him afterward, some take the findings to their own advisors. Both outcomes are fine.
How do I know if I qualify?
This work is built for incorporated owner-operators in forestry, heavy civil construction, oil and gas, mining, aggregate, and farming, typically with $500,000 or more in retained earnings and plans to exit within two to five years. Michael is licensed in Alberta and British Columbia.