Retirement planning can be challenging, we’ve outlined what we feel are 6 steps to retirement success.
Have a written plan which merges life priorities with financial resources.
Consolidate your income-producing assets with one advisor.
Layer different sources of income in the most efficient manner.
Structure income in order to preserve valuable tax credits and government benefits.
Create efficient cash flow by investing your income-producing assets wisely.
Implement efficient solutions for health-cost risks and wealth transfer strategies.
Talk to us about a complimentary comprehensive review of your retirement plan.
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What happens when the children grow up and they are no longer dependent on their parents? Estate planning for mature families and retirees can bring up a number of issues including family dynamics and harmony. One of the most difficult conversations is around fair or equal distribution of assets. Before you begin putting a plan in place, we always encourage open conversation and a family meeting between the parents and children to provide context behind decisions and therefore it minimizes the surprises and provides an opportunity for children to express their concerns.
We’ve put together an infographic checklist that can help you get started on this. We know this can be a difficult conversation so we’re here to help and provide guidance.
Adult Children
Fair vs Equal (also known as Equitable vs Equal) – like what’s considered to be fair may not necessarily be equal. ex. Should the daughter that’s been working in the family business for 10 years receive the same shares as the son who hasn’t worked in the family business at all?
Are the adult children responsible enough to handle the inheritance? Or would they spend it all?
Family Meeting
Encourage open conversation with parents and kids so context can be provided behind the decisions, there are no surprises and allows the kids to express their interests and concerns.
Facilitate a family meeting with both generations, this will help promote ongoing family unity after death and decrease the chances of resentment later.
Assets/Liabilities
What are your assets? Create a detailed list of your assets such as:
Home, Family Business Interest, Real Estate, Investments- Non registered, TFSA, RRSP, RDSP, RESP, Company Pension Plan, Insurance Policy, Property, Additional revenue sources, etc…
What are your liabilities? Create a detailed list of your liabilities such as:
Mortgage, Loans (personal, student, car), Line of Credit, Credit card, Other loans (payday, store credit card, utility etc.)
Understand your assets-the ownership type (joint, tenants in common, sole etc.), list who are the beneficiaries are for your assets
Understand your liabilities- are there any cosigners?
Make sure you have a will that:
Assigns an executor
Provide specific instructions for distribution of assets
Always choose 2 qualified people for each position and communicate your intentions with them to ensure they’re up for the responsibility.
Taxes and Probate
How much are probate and taxes? (Income tax earned from Jan 1 to date of death + Taxes on Non Registered Assets + Taxes on Registered Assets)
Are there any outstanding debts to be paid?
You’ve worked your whole life- how much of your hard earned money do you want to give to CRA?
How much money do you want to to give to your kids while you’re living?
Consider the following:
The use of trusts.
The use of an estate freeze if you wish to gift while you’re living.
Once you determine the amount of taxes, probate, debt, final expenses and gifts required, review your life insurance coverage to see if it meets your needs or if there’s a shortfall.
Execution:It’s good to go through this but you need to do this. Besides doing it yourself, here’s a list of the individuals that can help:
Financial Planner/Advisor (CFP)
Estate Planning Specialist
Insurance Specialist
Lawyer
Accountant/Tax Specialist
Chartered Life Underwriter (CLU)
Chartered Executor Advisor (CEA)
There are definitely unique situations in many families and things can get complicated so please use this when you feel it’s applicable.
Next steps…
Contact us about helping you get your estate planning in order so you can gain peace of mind that your family is taken care of.
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The 2019 budget is titled “Investing in the Middle Class. Here are the highlights from the 2019 Federal Budget.
We’ve put together the key measures for:
Individuals and Families
Business Owners and Executives
Retirement and Retirees
Farmers and Fishers
Individuals & Families
Home Buyers’ Plan
Currently, the Home Buyers’ Plan allows first time home buyers to withdraw $25,000 from their Registered Retirement Savings Plan (RRSP), the budget proposes an increase this to $35,000.
First Time Home Buyer Incentive
The Incentive is to provide eligible first-time home buyers with shared equity funding of 5% or 10% of their home purchase price through Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC).
To be eligible:
Household income is less than $120,000.
There is a cap of no more than 4 times the applicant’s annual income where the mortgage value plus the CMHC loan doesn’t exceed $480,000.
The buyer must pay back CMHC when the property is sold, however details about the dollar amount payable is unclear. There will be further details released later this year.
Canada Training Benefit
A refundable training tax credit to provide up to half eligible tuition and fees associated with training. Eligible individuals will accumulate $250 per year in a notional account to a maximum of $5,000 over a lifetime.
Canadian Drug Agency
National Pharmacare program to help provinces and territories on bulk drug purchases and negotiate better prices for prescription medicine. According to the budget, the goal is to make “prescription drugs affordable for all Canadians.”
Registered Disability Savings Plan (RDSP)
The budget proposes to remove the limitation on the period that a RDSP may remain open after a beneficiary becomes ineligible for the disability tax credit. (DTC) and the requirement for medical certification for the DTC in the future in order for the plan to remain open.
This is a positive change for individuals in the disability community and the proposed measures will apply after 2020.
Business Owners and Executives
Intergenerational Business Transfer
The government will continue consultations with farmers, fishes and other business owners throughout 2019 to develop new proposals to facilitate the intergenerational transfers of businesses.
Employee Stock Options
The introduction of a $200,000 annual cap on employee stock option grants (based on Fair market value) that may receive preferential tax treatment for employees of “large, long-established, mature firms.” More details will be released before this summer.
Retirement and Retirees
Additional types of Annuities under Registered Plans
For certain registered plans, two new types of annuities will be introduced to address longevity risk and providing flexibility: Advanced Life Deferred Annuity and Variable Payment Life Annuity.
This will allow retirees to keep more savings tax-free until later in retirement.
Advanced Life Deferred Annuity (ALDA): An annuity whose commencement can be deferred until age 85. It limits the amount that would be subject to the RRIF minimum, and it also pushes off the time period to just short of age 85.
Variable Payment Life Annuity (VPLA): Permit Pooled Retirement Pension Plans (PRPP) and defined contribution Registered Retirement Plans (RPP) to provide a VPLA to members directly from the plan. A VPLA will provide payments that vary based on the investment performance of the underlying annuities fund and on the mortality experience of VPLA annuitants.
Farmers and Fishers
Small Business Deduction
Farming/Fishing will be entitled to claim a small business deduction on income from sales to any arm’s length purchaser. Producers will be able to market their grain and livestock to the purchaser that makes the most business sense without worrying about potential income tax issues. This measure will apply retroactive to any taxation years that began after March 21, 2016.
To learn how the budget affects you, please don’t hesitate to contact us.
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If you are seeking ways to save in the most tax-efficient manner available, TFSAs and RRSPs can both be effective options for you to achieve your savings goals more quickly. However, each plan does have distinct differences and advantages / disadvantages. Let’s take a look at their key features:
While a TFSA can be used for any type of savings, an RRSP is used exclusively for retirement savings.
You can enjoy tax free withdrawals from your TFSA due to the fact that you make your contributions after you have paid tax, whereas the opposite is true for withdrawals from your RRSP (except in the case of lifelong learning plan and home buyers’ plan)
TFSA contributions aren’t tax deductible whereas RRSP contributions are i.e. with an RRSP, you can deduct the contributions that you make from your income when you file your tax return.
It is required that you use earned income to contribute towards your RRSP but this is not the case for your TFSA.
You can continue to contribute towards your TFSA for as long as you like, whereas you must close your RRSP and stop contributing towards it when you turn 71 and purchase an annuity or convert it to a RRIF with the savings that you have made within the plan.
You are able to specify your spouse as your beneficiary with both your TFSA and your RRSP, however there is a key difference with how your savings are treated upon your spouse’s death. With an RRSP, there will be taxes payable upon the monies left in the plan by your children who inherit it, whereas with a TFSA, tax is only paid on the increase in the value of the plan since the date of death in the year that it is inherited by your children. What’s more, no tax is payable if the value that they receive is less than the value of the TFSA at the time of death.
In summary, your individual circumstances will dictate which plan is the most appropriate for you, depending on your tax position and withdrawal intentions. The primary difference between both plans is the timing of the taxes payable i.e. if you want to defer the payment of your taxes, particularly if your marginal tax rate will be lower in retirement, an RRSP may be more beneficial for you. Alternatively, if your marginal tax rate will be higher when you plan to make withdrawals, a TFSA may suit you better.
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Now that we are nearing year end, it’s a good time to review your finances. 2018 saw a number of major changes to tax legislation come in force and more will apply in 2019, therefore you should consider available opportunities and planning strategies prior to year-end.
Below, we have listed some of the key areas to consider and provided you with some useful tips to make sure that you cover all of the essentials.
Key Tax Deadlines for 2018 Savings
December 31, 2018:
Medical expenses
Fees for union and professional memberships
Charitable gifts
Investment counsel fees, interest and other expenses relating to investments
Student loan interest payments
Political contributions
Deductible legal fees
Some payments for child and spousal support
If you reached the age of 71 in 2018, contributions to your RRSP
January 30, 2019
Interest on intra-family loans
Interest you must pay on employer loans, to reduce your taxable benefit
February 14, 2019
Expenses relating to personal car reimbursement to your employer
March 1, 2019
Contributions to provincial labour-sponsored venture capital corporations
Deductible contributions to a personal or spousal RRSP
Family Tax Issues
Check your eligibility to the Canada Child Benefit
In order to receive the Canada Child Benefit in 2019/20, you need to file your tax returns for 2018 because the benefit is calculated using the family income from the previous year. Eligibility depends on set criteria such as your family’s income and the number and age of your children and you may qualify for full or partial amount.
Consider family income splitting
The CRA offers a low interest rate on loans and it therefore makes sense to consider setting up an income splitting loan arrangements with members of your family, whereby you can potentially lock in the family loan at a low interest rate of 2% and subsequently invest the borrowed monies into a higher return investment and benefit from the lower tax status of your family member. Don’t forget to adhere to the new Tax on Split Income rules.
Have you sold your main residence this year?
If so, your 2018 personal tax return must include information regarding the sale or you may lose any “principal residence” exemptions on the capital gains from the sale and thus make the sale taxable.
If you’re moving, think carefully about your moving date
If you are moving to a new province, it’s worth noting that your residence at December 31, 2018 is likely to be the one that your taxes are due to for the whole of the 2018 year. Therefore, if your move is to a province with higher taxes, putting your move off until 2019 may therefore make sense, and vice versa if you are moving to a lower tax province.
Managing Your Investments
Use up your TFSA contribution room If you are able, it’s worth contributing the full $5,500 to your TFSA for 2018. You can also contribute more (up to $57,500) if you are 27 or older and haven’t made any previous TFSA contributions.
Check if you have investments in a corporation
The new passive investment income rules apply to tax years from 2018 and you therefore need to plan ahead if the rules affect you. They state that the small business deduction is reduced for companies which are affected with between $50,000 and $150,000 of investment income, therefore the small business deduction has been stopped completely for corporations which earn passive investment income of more than $150,000.
Think about selling any investments with unrealized capital losses It might be worth doing this before year-end in order to apply the loss against any net capital gains achieved during the last three years. Any late trades should ideally be completed on or prior to December 21, 2018 and subsequently confirmed with your broker. Conversely, if you have investments with unrealized capital gains which are not able to be offset with capital losses, it may be worth selling them after 2018 in order to be taxed on the income the following year.
Estate and Retirement Planning
Make the most of your RRSP
The deadline for making contributions to your RRSP for the year 2018 is March 1, 2019. There are three things that affect how much you may contribution towards your RRSP, as follows:
18% of your previous year’s earned income
Up to a maximum of $26,230 for 2018 and $26,500 for 2019
Your pension adjustment
Remember that deducting your RRSP contribution reduces your after-tax cost of making said contribution.
Check when your RRSP is due to end
You should wind-up your RRSP if you reached the age of 71 during 2018 and your final contributions should be made by December 31, 2018.
Other Considerations
Make your personal tax instalments
If you pay your final 2018 personal tax instalment by December 15, 2018, you won’t pay interest or penalty charges. Similarly, if you are behind on these instalments, you should try to make “catch-up” payments by that date. You can also offset part or all of the non-deductible interest that you would have been assessed if you make early or additional instalment payments.
Remember the deadline for making a taxpayer-relief request The deadline is December 31, 2018 for making a tax-payer relief request related to the 2008 tax year.
Consider how to minimize the taxable benefit for your company car The taxable benefit applied to company cars is comprised of two parts – a stand-by charge and an operating-cost benefit. If you drive a company car, it’s worth considering how to potentially minimize both of these elements. The taxable benefit for operating costs is $0.26 per km of personal use, therefore you should make sure that you reimburse your employer where relevant, by the deadline of February 14, 2019.
Contact us if you have any questions, we can help.
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Working with a professional to help you to make sense of your finances can be a wise move, but for this relationship to work effectively it is important that you understand what to expect from your financial advisor.
What can your financial advisor help you with?
Defining your financial goals and creating a step by step plan or strategy to achieve them.
Planning for the future, including for retirement, future education or housing needs.
Choosing the mix of investments and assets that suit your goals, lifestyle, time horizon and appetite for risk.
Building a solid estate for your family to inherit in the future.
Choosing the most tax-efficient methods of saving and investing.
What should your financial advisor inform you of?
The range of services that they offer and how much and by which method you will compensate them.
Your mutual responsibilities and obligations towards each other.
What the planning process will look like and the documents that they will provide you with.
What will your financial advisor need from you or need to ask you about?
What your financial goals are.
What your personal circumstances – such as your marital status, any dependents, your job, earnings and tax situation.
Any investments or assets that you currently have – such as registered accounts, workplace pensions, property etc.
Your appetite for risk and investment preferences.
Information on your income and also your outgoings, including debts such as mortgages, loans or credit cards.
Whether or not you have a will, and its contents.
Your estate and inheritance planning situation.
If you’re looking to achieve your financial goals, talk to us. We can help.
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