Humanizing the Code, Building Client Trust, and Cross-Border Estates with Amanda Doucette

Welcome to Studying Law Around the World. I'm Claudio Claus. In each episode, I talk with lawyers, law students, and professors from different parts of the world to talk about legal education, careers, and what the profession looks like in real life. We talk about the hard parts, the surprises, and the decisions that shaped their paths. Whether you're planning to study abroad, thinking about working in another legal system, or just curious about how law works around the world, this podcast is for you. This evening, I have the opportunity to interview Amanda Doucet. She's a Canadian tax, trust, and estate lawyer. She's the director of the Society of Trust and Estate Practitioners. and hosts the highly rated The Tax Chick podcast. Amanda advises clients on complex domestic and cross-border planning, resolves disputes with the CRA, the Canadian Revenue Agency, and is known for making tax law practical, clear, and engaging. Thank you so much for making the time to join me on the podcast this evening. Well, thank you so much for inviting me. I'm happy to be here and talk about tax. Our, our main public here are young lawyers who are starting their careers now, and I find it so important to hear a little bit from each practice area, see what the day-to-day looks like, and also what, how interesting a career in that area is. And I noticed that I don't have a lot of tax lawyers on the podcast, so I definitely wanted to have Amanda here. But to start your podcast, I'd love for you to tell us a little bit more about your journey into tax law, trusts, and estate law, and maybe even what drew you to this practice area. Well, it's interesting when you say that. This isn't really an area of law that's showcased or talked about a lot in law school because when I went to law school, I didn't even know that being a tax lawyer was a possibility. So if you look back at my history, when I was in law school, I took all courses related to advocacy and litigation. I was going to be a civil litigator. I was going to be a family law lawyer. I took the minimum amount of corporate classes that were required, but that was not an area I was interested in. My undergrad is in psychology. I have no background in math, no background in science, no background in commerce. And when I finished law school, I clerked for the Court of Appeal, again, continuing this sort of idea where advocacy and litigation was something that was important to me. So I clerked there and then I came back as an associate to work at the firm that I'm now a partner at. And when I started at the firm, I was doing litigation and family law, and I wasn't really liking it all that much. And I couldn't figure out if it was the area of law or if I was having a crisis of conscience and I just didn't wanna be a lawyer anymore. But I remember being not that happy. And a few months into practice, one of our senior lawyers, one of my, you know, tax partners that just retired actually a couple of years ago, he came down the hall and he had been such a wonderful mentor and support to me. And he said, hey, I need some help on this file. I have a trial coming up, a tax litigation trial, and I really need a junior to help me out. Would you help me? And at the time, The way that that worked is when somebody asked you if you wanted to help them, they weren't really asking you. You, you didn't really have a choice. So I said, well, okay, but I'm really bad at math. Is that all right? And he said, oh yeah, you don't have to be good at math. Don't worry about it. And it changed my life. It changed my life. It changed my practice. And so my introduction to tax was tax litigation. And I think that is a great gateway to introduce yourself to this area if you're someone that has a similar background to me and does not have that math focus, because tax litigation is all about advocacy. And that's what I wanted to do. I wanted to advocate for people. I wanted to educate people. And I got to do that by being a tax litigator. And so our very first case that I helped him on was a teacher. And this teacher had purchased some rental properties and she had gotten a little bit of advice from an accountant and she was one of those clients that just took the advice and ran with it and not in a great way. And so she had went and incorporated some companies and she wasn't really reporting the income anywhere, but she was kind of reporting the expenses in 2 places and she got herself in a bit of a pickle. And so Canada Revenue Agency came in and they said, hey, we're gonna assess you for income. We're gonna hit you with penalties 'cause you clearly knew what you were doing and you're a bad person. And so the overall assessment for her was fairly significant and she was a teacher heading towards the end of her career. And so we won that case, which was great. And as part of that, we were able to help support her to understand what had happened so she didn't do it again. So there was an education piece, and we also were able to fix the problem that had been created. And that was the thing that spurred my love of tech. That's incredible. What a story. And I love what you just said about, I do hear quite often that a lot of people will end up going into law school because they don't feel like they have, you know, all the, all the skills that people who started in a STEM track have and developed. Very much throughout their undergrad work and all of that. So really appreciate you starting by, by really showcasing that, how can, how it can be an accessible practice of area if you're interested into it, right? Regardless of those natural talents, so to say. I understand also that your work combines, you know, advisory work, litigation, and then the planning aspect of it. So, so you're also talking with families and businesses. And then you also are always engaged in teaching, speaking, podcasting. How have these parts of your career shaped one another and maybe even what they have taught you about being a lawyer? I'm always interested in lawyers that, that do things beyond their practice 9 to 5, that they have, you know, special interests and they, and they keep on with them. And also that they find a place, an environment where that's incentivized and and celebrated and cherished. So I'd love to hear a little bit more about that on your life. Well, in terms of the pieces of my practice, I can start there first because I think although tax litigation was the gateway that got me into tax, it was certainly not all that I ever did and not that I do all that I do now. And so what's really interesting is if you're a student and you're listening to this, or you're a young lawyer and you're like, what are my options if I want to be a tax lawyer? My answer, which is very lawyerly, is it depends because it depends where you're practicing. If you want to go and practice at a large, you know, national or international firm, you're going to become very specialized and just amazing at a very niche area of something in tax, and you're going to do that all the time, and it's going to be so cool. But if you want a bit more of a broader opportunity to practice tax, then you have to look to more of like a boutique firm or a full-service firm, and that's the type of firm that I'm in. We do call ourselves a tax firm, because most of our lawyers have training in tax, but we serve small business clients. And so as a result, you can't just know one little thing because these clients have multifaceted issues and you have to be able to support them. And tax is everywhere. So once you know it, you can't unsee it, right? And so as a result, over the years of my career, I've picked up different specialties depending on the needs of the client. And now we have so many lawyers who practice tax in our firm that we're actually able to get to a place at our more senior levels of practice where we can start niching a little bit more, which has been kind of fun. But the areas of my practice over the years is I started with tax litigation, and then I was told, if you want to litigate, you need to learn the tax because it'll make you a better litigator. And so the firm is, is big on education. They paid for me to go and do the CPA in-depth tax course. So I did the 3-year tax course and I got certified in that. I then chose to do a master's in tax. This was my own choice. I, I looked after that on my own, but I did that while working full-time. And so I have the background and training that moved me into planning work. So corporate reorganization work and preparing planning memos, et cetera. I can do them, but it's not my true love. I don't like sitting behind a computer screen and tapping out a plan. I like to be the one that's in there with the clients engaging with it. And so over time, I slowly started introducing into my practice this trust estate succession planning piece to the tax discussion. And that is where I really love to operate in, because that's where you have families that are trying to figure out what to do when they're passing their business on to the next generation. Or you have someone that's passed away and you're now dealing with their asset base. Well, there's tax consequences throughout all of that, and you need someone to walk you through it. And there's usually an education piece. as part of this. So as I don't come from a math background, most of my clients don't come from a math background. Most of my clients are really, really amazing at what they do in their business, but they don't like talking about numbers. And so I have found that my background has actually been helpful because when I engage with clients, I engage with them to teach them the way that I have learned. And so we use a lot of pictures, we draw a lot of stuff. We do have spreadsheets, but we walk through those spreadsheets and it's really about making sure that if clients are making a decision, it's an informed decision, not that they're blindly doing something and don't realize the consequences. So I've had this huge evolution, and in more recent years, the evolution has moved into an international estate planning, succession planning, estate administration focus. And we can talk about that a little bit later, but I'm, I'm finding that there's so many issues that are tied to Saskatchewan, even though clients are living in a different country or they have assets in a different country. And so broadening my knowledge base there has become important. So earlier this year, I completed a certification in cross-border estates with STEP Worldwide in order to make sure I had the knowledge base to do that. So I'm very much a continued learner. I get bored really easily. I really like to constantly have things change. Tax law is perfect for anyone who wants constant changes. And so I've seen this evolution kind of in my career over time. That sounds very exciting. It can be easy to think that tax law is very technical, very theoretical, but I love this reputation you built about making tax law more human. And I can see how much, you know, empathy you can have for your clients when they come in without having that understanding of tax and even, you know, the number aspect of it. What does that mean to you and why do you think it's so important in your practice? I think it's a very personal thing for me because growing up, I was always told the narrative, you're bad at math and You know, I wasn't actually bad at math. Like when I look at my grades, my grades were as good in math as they were in all the other subjects. But math just was so much harder for me. And I grew up in a household where my dad was a scientist, my mom was a bookkeeper. So fun was doing the dishes and having a competition over who could finish a long division question quicker. Like that was fun in my house. And I just didn't think that was fun. That wasn't something that I really enjoyed. I've always loved to read. And so For me, the aspects of tax law that I've always loved is if somebody gives me a giant box of documents, like I dive right in, I'm good. Whereas many of my colleagues see a box of documents and go, just gimme a spreadsheet, I want a spreadsheet. So I think I come into it with that perspective and I've lived my whole life feeling like I couldn't do these things. And so I've overcome them and I believe others can overcome them too. And so I've become very passionate about trying to help people feel better about themselves. And I think that business owners beat themselves up a lot because they don't understand the financial aspects of things. And it's not that I want them to educate themselves to the extent that they can tell me the sub-sub-subsection of the Income Tax Act, but I think they should at least be able to know what they're doing and why they're doing it and feel confident that if they were chatting with a business friend of theirs, they could explain, I have 3 companies, here's what's in the companies, Here's generally what I'm doing. And so for me, I can see the light that goes on in people's faces when you meet with them and you get past that point where they now understand and they start asking really educated questions and they start calling you before they do something, which is the best as a lawyer, because I feel like we spend so much time cleaning up messes. I love it when someone phones me proactively because now I can say, hey, here's your 3 choices versus, well, we're in it now, so here's how we're going to get out of it. So it really helps to put that foot back in terms of saying to the client, now you understand the basics. With that understanding, now we can have a higher level conversation. We can do some cool things. We can really talk through this in a way that we couldn't before because you didn't, you didn't understand because you didn't want to understand. And so that dynamic has been really fun because then you feel like you're part of a team with your clients and you also don't feel like you're just telling them what to do and worrying about the consequences. Because at the end of the day, yes, tax is not great when you have to pay it. But I am not the lawyer that you come to if you say, I want to do everything in my power to avoid paying tax. I am not your gal. I am the gal that you talk to if you say, okay, tax is important, but also flexibility or continued control or lack of complexity. All of those things are important too. And I can help you juxtapose those. And understand the pros and the cons of different, different things that you might select and how that opens or closes doors for you in the future. So that's why this whole making it human thing is so important. I've had clients call me their translator, their interpreter. They'll want me to come to meetings with other advisors and the other advisor will say something and then they'll look at me and say, can you translate that please? And I'll say, well, they actually made a lot of sense, but okay, I'll, I'll say it. And then I'll say it my way and they'll go, oh, okay. And I don't know if I have a special skill. I don't know if I do. But I just like to explain things the way that I understand them. And I like to use analogies and stories because that's how people remember. And it's just, it's a really awesome thing to realize that you're, you're able to explain something to somebody and they can understand it. And that has a true effect on their day-to-day and their business and makes them feel better and they can sleep better at night. So that's how I look at it. I'm curious, you know, if there's a few things that you can bring up to us that That might be legal or tax issues that people might overlook when their lives really span through those multiple countries? Well, I think people need to take a step back if they've got a person in another country or they have an asset in another country and start from the position of every country has their own set of laws. Every country has their own set of tax laws. Every country has their own set of estate planning laws. Within a country, each province or state may have its own set of laws. And usually none of these laws work together. So if you kind of start from that position, that's kind of a good position to start from because you should never assume that the documents you've created in one place are going to work somewhere else. They might, but you need to ask the question. And so I think that's the important thing is, is we do have a lot of people who just are running around kind of assuming it'll be fine because the world is global. And yeah, the world is global, but the laws have not caught up. So a really simple example of this is powers of attorney. So in Canada, if you create a power of attorney, which is, as we all know, this power over your property and your person, and if you create that pretty much anywhere in Canada with the exception of Quebec, that document will be used and can be used across the country for the most part. But that document cannot be used in the US. It's a totally different document down there. So you can take that document down to Chase Bank in Texas and they're going to go, not a valid document. So if you're working with snowbirds who are down in Arizona 3 months of the year and have a bank account and investment account, you better get another power of attorney done that's specific to the US. And then you need to consider what if there's a health event when they're in the US? Well, what powers are in either power of attorney that allow the attorney to get the body back to Canada, to get the person back to Canada if they can't consent? All of those things you gotta start thinking about. And that's the simplest of examples where you have a client that just goes down to snowbird for a couple months in the States. They might have, you know, a rental condo. They may not even own anything down there. That's already the problem that you come into. And so I think if we just start from the perspective that those documents are not necessarily used globally, that's a helpful starting position. And then from there, it's about the advice you seek as to whether you do need to do something else in another country or in another state. And the answer is not always yes. That's amazing. Well, thank you for bringing that up. I think that's such an important reminder as families become more and more international. That really plays a big role. I also noticed that just recently, a few months back, you had done a presentation at the STEP Canada conference and you were discussing about estate planning across Canada, the UK, France. Can you give us just a little bit of what that presentation was about? That was a really fun presentation and I'm actually going to be having clips Who's the lawyer from the UK that was speaking with me? She's going to be coming on my podcast as a guest to talk about the UK Canada piece. But we were touching on sort of two main aspects. One was what are the tax consequences if you have connections in either France or the UK as well as Canada? But then also what are the estate administration consequences, probate, transfer of property, all of those things if you've got three different countries involved? And we did the presentation as a bit of a case study because all three of us operated. By, we like to give an example and then work off of an example. And so we had a couple who lived in Canada, had a company in Canada, but one of the spouses had ties from her college years to Europe and therefore had property over in Europe. And one of the kids wanted those pieces of property. And of course a bunch of people die and then you have to deal with what's happening. And I mean, we have tax treaties between, for example, like UK and Canada. And France and Canada, but they're, they're very limited in certain circumstances. And so there's often a mismatch in the taxation. And when there's a mismatch in the taxation, even if there's a treaty, you sometimes still have tax in both countries. The other thing to remember when you're dealing with international estates is that the definitions of things like a spouse are so different, right? In, in Commonwealth versus civil countries and even within Commonwealth countries, That some countries don't have the concept of common-law marriage like Canada does. And so if you don't, well, maybe that person's not your spouse, which has a whole host of issues that arise from it. Because if the bulk of your wealth is somewhere else and you haven't prepared a will, or there's forced heirship in this other country, perhaps your stuff is going somewhere different than where you want it to go. And so that's kind of an example of what we ended up talking about. And it was a super fun presentation. And I thought it was interesting because I do see a lot of French and UK issues in Saskatchewan. And so those 2 countries in particular, it was helpful for me to work with those lawyers because those are things I'm seeing all the time. So then I got to learn too as part of the presentation. Amazing. That's fantastic. I'd love for you to tell us a little bit about your show and also maybe even how has sharing knowledge publicly also has influenced your career and maybe even why do you think lawyers should invest in building a voice beyond their daily practice? Well, I think as a starting point, by the time I started my podcast, I was a partner. And so because I was a partner, it's not that I didn't check with my partners and tell them I was doing this, but I was definitely under different constraints, right? That, so if someone's listening to this and they're a young lawyer, I'm going to talk a bit about branding and all of that, but please be cognizant of whatever rules are there in your organization. You might need to check with some people before you do stuff. And I think that's important to remember. My podcast came out of COVID And so my actual practice at the time that COVID hit was largely tax litigation. And then the other piece of it was corporate reorganization work. Well, that was problematic because the tax court shut down, CRA shut down. So like half of my practice was gone, right, for a large period of time. And then nobody was really reorganizing anything because nobody had any money and everyone was panicked. So that whole piece of my practice disappeared. And in the meantime, what was blowing up was the fact that the tax laws were changing. Sometimes by the hour. Like, we would think we knew what this particular rule was going to be, and then it would just switch by the time you went to try and implement it. And I had a number of friends who were business owners at the time who knew me. And so here I am working from my dining room table, and they're phoning me, and we're having conversations about what to do when you can't pay your rent and all of those things. And I thought, you know, those people know they can call me, and I'm happy to talk to them. But there's other people out there who don't know who to call, who really need some support. And there really wasn't a place that they could go for information. I mean, you could always go to Canada Revenue Agency's website, and it's, it's a very good website, and they've updated it recently, but it doesn't feel safe, right? People don't necessarily trust it because it's coming from Canada Revenue Agency. And there wasn't a place they could go that was like free that they could get information, but people needed info like now. So in May of 2020, I started a blog. That's how this whole thing started. It started as the Tax Chick blog, and I did weekly blog posts. And my very first blog post was talking about what people needed to keep for documentation if they were going to be applying for various COVID benefits. And ironically, I, I must have futuristic predicted what was going to happen because I said there's going to be audits on this and this is what they're going to be looking for. And, you know, you fast forward 5 years and I was exactly right in terms of what you had to keep. But that was my first post and I just started posting every week. And it was the first time I'd really posted on LinkedIn. I used to creep on LinkedIn. I didn't post on LinkedIn. And I remember being really scared to press you know, the, the button to say I was going to post that. I created a WordPress site where I was posting my blog posts, and I started doing that for a while. And I was posting on Instagram around then and saying there was a new blog post. But the idea of a podcast had always been in the back of my mind, and I had all the equipment sitting in the basement. And at one point, I was going to do a podcast about Saskatoon with some of my other colleagues in the city, and the thing fell apart for various reasons, but I still have the equipment sitting there. And Somebody responded to one of my blog posts in the summertime of 2020 and said, you know, you should do a podcast. Like, I would rather listen to this than read it. And I thought, I could do a podcast. I don't really know how to hook what into what, but I think I could do this, right? And so I decided, what's the worst that can happen? Like, if it's really bad, I'll just pull it. And so I decided to do a podcast. I've always been a yapper. I've always been an educator. I taught at the College of Law for many years. I, I much prefer speaking than, than writing. And so this was easy for me. My husband likes to play around with making music. So he said, I'll make your intro and outro music. And I said, great. And so he made that for me. And there's a great source here in Saskatoon called Lemon Productions. His name is Chris Enns. And Chris does a lot of podcast editing for big podcasts in the States, but he also offers this like consultation for people that just need support. And so I needed support. So I, I called up Chris and we did a consultation and he helped to walk me through The submission to Apple Podcasts and making sure I had everything connected properly and that I wasn't paying a bunch of extra money for equipment I didn't need. So I just sought some support and I started the podcast and I invited some of my friends on the first season. So the first season's a little rough, right? None of us knew what we were doing, but the information is still good. And I don't think I ever intended it to still be going at this time. I think it was for me, this is a short-term thing to help provide support to people. And maybe, you know, connect with people at a time where there was no connection. And now we're in season 7 and it's still going. And every year I kind of go, do I stop? And then I love it so much, I just keep going. And it's not as— I don't do it on the same rigor that I used to. The episodes do not come out at the same time, at the same week, but it's all about the content for me and reaching out to people and giving them something they can listen to when they're walking their dog. And I find that my, my listenership Um, you know, it was interesting to hear from you that most of your listeners are students or like young lawyers. I had intended my listeners to be business owners, but although many of my clients listen to my podcast, I find the majority of my listeners are other advisors that don't practice tax but are feeling uncomfortable because they can't spot the issues, or they don't know what to say to clients, or they don't know when something is actually going to go wrong. And so they listen to the podcast so that they feel more confident knowing when to say, hey, We need to call somebody. And so that's been a really cool piece of the podcast and the establishment of this, this brand that I didn't intend to establish. Many of the listeners are law students, and I always like to, to close the podcast with a question specifically towards them, you know, recent graduates beginning their careers. When you look back at your own journey, is there a few pieces of advice that you'd give to the next generation of lawyers entering the profession today? And even more specifically, if they're interested in practicing tax law or having a cross-border practice. You know, uh, related to, to what you've done throughout your career? Well, I think that number one to sort of remember is that if somebody asks you or gives you an opportunity, say yes, even if you think you don't want to do it, because you may be missing out on the biggest thing that will ever happen in your career. So, say yes. That, that would be my number one advice. And then number 2 is kind of figure out who you are as a person. I think that with the advent of AI and a lot of the changes coming in our profession, it's going to be very different to build a business as a young lawyer today than it was for me 20 years ago. And what clients are really searching for is a person they like, right? Clients are now at the place where they want bespoke customized services and they wanna be able to pick up the phone and have a conversation with you. And if they don't like you, they're not gonna phone you. And that's what's gonna distinguish you from the guy down the street. So how can you do that? Well, A, just be yourself, be a nice person, but also figure out what education you need in order to be able to provide that level of service. Education does not end when you finish law school. Things are changing way too quickly, and that's regardless if you're practicing in tax and cross-border or some other area. Figure out what you need to do to stay on the cusp of what's going on, because that's what's going to separate you from the other lawyers in your area. That's amazing. Thank you so much, Amanda, for taking the time to join me on the podcast today and share a little bit more about your practice, about your career, and also how can we listen to your podcast? Can you tell us a little bit more? So the Tax Chick podcast is available on all major streaming sites. And if you want to see some stuff in writing, if that's your jam versus listening, I do have all my blog posts available free to the public on my website at www.thetaxchick.ca. Give me a follow on LinkedIn. It's just my name, Amanda Doucette. Or if you, if you're an Instagram person, it's @tax.chick. Amazing. Thank you so much for making the time to come on the show again. And thank you all for tuning into today's episode. Thank you for having me.