Background
Eva Krasa is a partner at our Toronto office. Eva was admitted to the Ontario Bar in 1978. She received her LLB from McGill University Law School in 1976. Prior to that, she received a BA (Honours) from Bishops University in 1973, attending Acadia University on an exchange scholarship in her third undergraduate year. Eva worked in the Tax Policy-Legislation Division of the federal Department of Finance between 1982 and 1984 under the executive exchange programme.
Areas of Practice
· Eva has practised exclusively in tax law since 1978. For many years she has specialized in pension tax, executive compensation, employment benefits, retirement savings and deferred compensation.
Rankings and Recognitions
· Selected by peers for inclusion in The Best Lawyers in Canada 2012 (Tax Law)
· Martindale-Hubbell BV Peer Review Rating
Professional Experience
Eva has provided tax advice to many different players in pension and employee benefits arrangements, including plan sponsors, employee participants, trustees, investment managers and service providers. She has advised on a broad range of tax issues in various types of arrangements, such as pension plans (defined benefit and defined contribution), registered retirement savings plans, deferred profit sharing plans, tax-free savings accounts, supplemental pension plans and employee stock options and other stock-based compensation plans.
Examples of matters which Eva deals with in her practice include:
· Regularly involved in structuring, drafting and reviewing plan texts and plan amendments to ensure tax effectiveness and compliance.
· Advised on tax effective treatment of outstanding stock options in several major merger and acquisition transactions.
· Regularly provides tax compliance advice with respect to pension fund investment.
· Extensive experience with the utilization by pension plans of tax exempt pension real estate corporations and tax exempt pension investment corporations and with the utilization of master trusts as an investment vehicle for multiple pension plans.
· Advised a major Canadian trust company on the tax aspects of the sale of its pension and institutional trust business.
· Performed a complete review of the standard trust documents for two major Canadian trust companies.
· Advises on registered retirement savings plan, registered retirement income fund, registered education savings plan and tax-free savings account documentation for sponsors of such plans.
Professional and Community Activities
· Member, Canadian Tax Foundation and Canadian Bar Association
· Speaker at meetings of the Canadian Tax Foundation, Canadian Bar Association - Taxation Section, Canadian Bar Association - Pension Section and seminars sponsored by Insight, Osgoode Hall Law School and Canadian Bar Association Continuing Legal Education; author of numerous articles for the Canadian Tax Journal and the Federated Press publication, Taxation of Executive Compensation and Retirement.