It is with mixed feelings that I write this post. It will be my last one. I have written this blog for fourteen years starting with my first post on September 20, 2010, appropriately titled “Let’s See Where This Goes”. After 638 posts, I am saying goodbye. This blog went beyond my wildest expectations. As of today, I have over 6,000,000 page reads. I have been interviewed on TV & video, quoted multiple times in various publications, written articles for newspapers and had multiple media opportunities I had never envisioned. I even used the best of my blogs to form a book, “Let’s Get Blun ..read more

In my last blog post, I discussed that for tax and estate planning purposes, you should estimate your current estate tax liability and then plan how your estate will cover off this liability (which in many cases is an ever growing tax liability). Today, I want to discuss what income tax rate(s) you may wish to use in estimating your estate tax liability. For clarity, this exercise to estimate your estate tax liability is not meant to be definitive calculation (if you wish a definitive calculation, you will need to engage your accountant and possibly a business evaluator). This exercise is ..read more

Since retiring from public accounting, I am working part-time as a Tax and Estate Consultant for a Wealth Management (“WM”) firm and as a Quarterback/Part-time CFO for a couple of families. When working with the WM firm's clients, I like to provide them with an estimate of their anticipated income tax liability on death based on their current net worth. I find this is often a very useful exercise for clients, so that they can plan and consider how their estate will cover their tax liability upon their passing (typically the last spouse to die, as the first spouse can transfer their assets tax ..read more

From an income tax perspective (I am obviously ignoring the emotional issues) receiving an inheritance provides two tax related benefits. The receipt of the inheritance is typically tax-free and you may also receive a “bump” (increase) in the adjusted cost base (“ACB”) of any capital property inherited. However, over the years, I have seen cases where people pay unnecessary income tax and/or have disputes with the CRA because they (1) forget or are not aware of the cost base bump (2) have misplaced documentation or never obtained documentation (3) have switched accountants (or the original wo ..read more

Before I started reading through the federal budget report tabled on March 28th by Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance, Chrystia Freeland, I expected there would be significant personal and corporate tax changes. But this budget is about “clean and green” technology refundable investment tax credits for business owners, changes to the alternative minimum tax (“AMT”) to make it harder for high-income earners to avoid paying income tax, tightening up the rules on intergenerational transfers of businesses and some other smaller changes.  There are no changes to the general persona ..read more

Unfortunately, any tax planning for your 2022 personal tax return needed to be done by December 31st of 2022 and there is very little, if any, planning you can do in March and April of this year. However, there is still hope to reduce your 2022 income tax liability, especially if you are not a detailed organizer of information. Today, I will review a few deductions and tax credits people sometimes leave on the table. None of this is cutting edge information; it is just double checking you have claimed all your deductions and credits. In fact, if you read my last blog post On How to Get on You ..read more

Many readers of this blog use accountants to prepare their personal income tax returns. You can take three approaches in working with your accountant. You can provide them with: all the detailed information they request most of the information, without overly exerting yourself the minimum information, since you pay good fees From a client perspective, all these approaches are reasonable to some degree. However, as a retired public accountant of 35 or so tax seasons, I suggest you lean towards approach number one, to the greatest extent you can. I say this for two reasons. The first reaso ..read more

I thought today, I would discuss some financial rules of thumb. All these rules should be taken with a large grain of salt, but they can sometimes provide an initial starting point from which to work. Please do not consider any of these rules as gospel. Investment Returns The “Rule of 72” is an actual rule you can use with confidence, as it is mathematical. The rule simply tells you how long it will take for your money to double, at a fixed rate of return. The formula is 72/interest rate (or annual rate of return) = number of years it will take for your money to double. For example, if your ..read more

On December 12th, I posted a blog on Permanent Life Insurance for High-Net-Worth Individuals and Corporate Business Owners. This blog was based on a podcast on which I was a panelist. In the blog, I expanded on the podcast discussion, to review in greater detail what exactly is permanent insurance and why you may wish to use permanent insurance for estate planning or asset diversification purposes. I noted in the post, that we intended to have a follow-up podcast on some of the hard questions to ask when you are considering entering into a permanent life insurance policy. That podcast is now ..read more

In January, we are keen to tackle our New Year’s resolutions. Yet most of us abandon our goals by March. Researchers have stated one of the main reasons we do not keep our resolutions is that we do not make our resolutions actionable and achievable. So, if one of your financial resolutions is to clean-up your 2022 financial affairs and tune them up for 2023, I today provide a roadmap to make these goals actionable and achievable. For each financial topic or issue below, I will discuss what you should do to clean-up for 2022 and what you should consider doing in 2023 to tune-up your finances ..read more