Posts from the ‘Tax’ Category

Jan 7

RRSPs 102 – Beyond the Basics

I don’t want to insult your intelligence or induce a potentially fatal sense of post-holiday boredom by repeating what a lot of you already know about RRSPs. On the other hand, you know what they say about “assume” and what it makes of “u” and me. Accordingly, this is what I propose: I’ll run through a basic summary as quickly as possible and will ever try to sprinkle in a few jokes to liven your day before getting to some of the (at least to me), more interesting stuff. I’ll then describe a couple more advanced planning techniques to reward you for making to the bitter end but will hold back the rest until my next article in the hopes that this will both leave you clamouring for more and reduce your eyestrain in the meantime. Read more

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

Jun 22

The OAS Pension Recovery Tax What To Do if the Clawback Ain’t For You (Part 2)

Introduction

Now that you know how the OAS pension clawback is applied and its actual effects on your bottom line in after-tax dollars, I want to pass along ways you can organize your affairs so that you can get (and keep!) as much of your Old Age Security Pension that is humanly possible. Since a lot (but not all) of these techniques focus on keeping your taxable income down, you might also save some income tax dollars, too, if you’re not careful.

Before diving in, I realized that there was one additional situation where I see seniors taking an unwanted sojourn into the clawback zone that merits comment: the curse of the saver. If you are one of those thrifty and savvy investors who actually grow their incomes during retirement, you could unwittingly end up in the clawback zone at some point. Even if you don’t become a regular inhabitant, you still may be an occasional visitor during years you report significant capital gains. Accordingly, this article is written for those of you as well in the hopes of keeping your visits to this unpopular destination as infrequent as possible.