It was a pleasure to participate in a live tax chat with Canadians from coast to coast before the holidays in an event hosted by MoneySense magazine. One of the interesting questions asked concerned the length of time contributors have to recover overpaid Canada Pension Plan premiums. The taxpayer discovered he had overpaid premiums when a retroactive CPP disability pension was granted over a 7 year period. To his dismay, he discovered that the maximum recovery time for such premium […]

Are you wealthy? How do you measure your answer? Many people don’t believe that word belongs to their situation until they sit down and actually map out their personal and family net worth – total assets less total debt. But wealth has a lot to do with your state of mind around financial decisions. According to a monthly survey from Spectrem Group’s Millionaire Corner[1], the notions of wealth are highly subjective. Retail investors – those with a net worth of […]

With all the political shenanigans of late (both federal and local), the respect – or lack thereof – of the taxpayers’ dollars emerges on front page news daily. If this is particularly irksome to you, you might be interested in a little history of taxation in Canada. It has been customary for tax policy to be developed to promote economic and social goals as well as to collect taxes and administer the tax system. Many of those goals had noble […]

Can employed and self-employed people claim the same expenses for home offices at tax time? The answer is no. Whether you are employed or self-employed matters; the following checklist can help you determine where your deductions fit. Employees who do not earn commission may claim: utilities; maintenance and repairs, including light bulbs and cleaning supplies; and rent. Commission sales employees can claim: utilities; maintenance and repairs, including light bulbs and cleaning supplies; rent; insurance; and property taxes. Self-employed people can […]

Agathe Côté, Deputy Governor of the Bank of Canada, spoke of one of my favorite subjects – the Promise of Potential – at the CFA Society Winnipeg/Manitoba Chambers of Commerce in Winnipeg on October 29. We at the Knowledge Bureau like to think about the promise of potential by measuring knowledge outputs of tax and financial advisors. The Bank of Canada, on the other hand, reviews its estimates of potential output growth in our economy every October. This measure also […]

Retirement planning may begin for you–quite unexpectedly–with the receipt of a retiring allowance or severance package from your employer. Aside from the shock of such an unexpected life event, for some people this is the largest lump sum of money they will receive in their remaining lifetime, so it needs to be carefully managed. Retiring allowances may also be paid in instalments over a period of years. Both these payment options are important considerations in planning at year end. For […]

I am excited about our upcoming national workshop tours with Cameron Peters, President of  Trilogy Software, Larry Frostiak, FCA, who has written a new course being unveiled on the tour especially for those advisors working to build family wealth with small business corporations, and Alan Rowell, MFA, DFA-Tax Services Specialist, who has prepared practical quizzes and case studies to help you understand how to prepare T2 returns for micro corporations and plan tax efficient income and capital accumulation by understanding […]

An effective year-end tax strategy is to donate to charity. Investors can do so by transferring qualifying shares to their favorite charity and avoid capital gains taxes by doing so. But in addition, this year there is the opportunity to donate under the First Time Donor’s Super Credit. In this case though, you’ll need to contribute cash. If you qualify as a first-time donor, do that first, perhaps by selling your losing securities and generating a capital loss. You’ll get […]

Winston Churchill once said: we make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give. It does feel good to do good. . .and doing good often attracts rewards as well. One of the rewards is the charitable donation credit, which this year has a new “sister credit” you’ll want to know more about before year end. Top tax rewards are received when gifts to your favorite registered charity are over $200. This results […]

It’s official: October 1 marks “year end tax planning season” and if you want to make it count, the best place to start making plans is to assess your personal and family net worth. This is important because when you better understand how financially stable you are, you’ll be less likely to act irrationally when faced with fluctuations in the financial marketplace. You can also make tax-efficient decisions about tax loss selling, retirement and education savings, when to sell the cottage, […]