Posts from the ‘Legal’ Category

Nov 19

Capital Ideas – How to Get the Biggest Benefit From Those Unwise Investment Decisions that Produce Capital Losses

Have you ever made any investment decisions that you’ve lived to regret? Unless your last name is Buffet or Graham (and even so, I still have my doubts), you’ve probably purchased at least a few investments that still cause you to stare into space while ruminating on how much money you lost. Moreover, unless you are content to live with GIC investments that currently pay less than the cost of inflation net of tax or have mastered the art of seeing into the future, there is a pretty good chance that you’ll have additional mistakes to lament over in the years ahead. Read more

Nov 3

2 Comments

Disaster on the Back of a Napkin

General News

Before diving into the topic of this month’s newsletter, I wanted to pass along a few other tidbits. First, I have two webinars coming up rather quickly. First, I am presenting at the World Money Show in Toronto this Saturday at 1:45 local time (10:45 in the fair place I call home), although this will be available via webinar. If you want to learn a little bit about how trusts work and hear of a few examples of their uses, then load up on the latte and tune in via the following link: http://www.worldmoneyshowtoronto.com/special-events.asp?specialtype=cm If you aren’t able to attend or this doesn’t get circulated before then, I suspect a recording will soon be available and I will try to link it to my website Read more

Aug 10

4 Comments

Spousal Loans without the Spousal Groans

Would you rather undergo a double root canal without anesthetic than risk marital Armageddon by asking your spouse to sign a promissory note to borrow money he or she probably thinks is half theirs already? While I applaud your common sense and instincts for self-preservation, the rest of this article is about trying to get you to do this anyway. To be clear, I am not asking that you attempt to change a relationship based on love and affection into one based on dollars without sense; instead, I am merely proposing that you take advantage of current tax rules in order to stretch family finances just a little bit further. Hopefully, the next few pages will change your mind. Of course, if by the end of the article you’re in love with the potential savings but worried about your spouse falling out of love with you as a consequence, not to worry: with the money you’ll be saving, you’ll easily be able to afford a conciliatory trip for two for somewhere special, or to even pay for family counseling if things are particularly frosty. Read more

May 20

Budget 2015

Before diving into this month’s article on the 2015 Federal Budget, I wanted to pass along some other news that I hope helps the cause. First, for those of you who haven’t already got the memo, the wholesale changes to life insurance and annuity taxation originally scheduled for 2016 won’t be effective until 2017. For those of you considering permanent life insurance or those retirees considering buying an annuity with non-registered loot, this gives you one extra year to take the plunge, as products purchased before the impending changes will continue to benefit from today’s rules. There are also a couple rather clever investment strategies using specially designed universal life insurance policies that won’t be nearly as attractive in the future. Single Pay policies that allow you to shelter a lifetime’s worth of tax and potentially creditor-sheltered payments will no longer offered. In addition, multiple life policies that insure several generations at the same time while also sheltering additional investment dollars will no longer be able to pay out the entire investment account tax-free at the first death unless the policy is in place before the deadline. Read more