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Wealth Planning

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Economic Insight COVID-19 Taxes

Fall Economic Statement

On November 30, 2020, Canadian Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister, Chrystia Freeland, delivered the government’s Fall Economic Statement titled, Supporting Canadians and Fighting COVID-19. Here's what you need to know.

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Economic Insight Value of Advice

Looking Ahead: U.S. Election Insights

The U.S. elections are scheduled for November 3, 2020, with all 435 seats in the House of Representatives, 35 out of 100 seats in the Senate, and the office of president to be contested.

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Budget Commentary Economic Insight Taxes COVID-19

COVID-19 Economic Response Plan

The federal government has enacted several measures aimed at stabilizing the economy as a result of COVID-19. Below is a summary of Canada’s COVID-19 Economic Response Plan, reflecting key measures announced as of October 5, 2020.

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Financial Planning Taxes

RRSP Transfer to Spouse on Death

While RRSPs are generally fully taxable on death, it is possible for spouses (including common-law partners) to leave RRSP assets to one another on death in a way that defers taxes. However, leaving RRSP assets to a surviving spouse is not as straightforward as some might think. Here is an overview of how this tax-deferred transfer might be achieved, using as an example the situation of two Canadian residents: Pat, who recently died, leaving a spouse, Terry.

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Financial Planning Taxes

RRIF Transfer to Spouse on Death

While a Registered Retirement Income Fund (RRIF) is generally fully taxable on death, it is possible for spouses (including common-law partners) to leave RRIF assets to one another on death in a way that defers taxes. Here is an overview of how this tax-deferred transfer might be achieved, using as an example the situation of two Canadian residents: Lee, who recently died, leaving a spouse, Casey.

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Retirement Planning Financial Planning

Retirement plans changing? Evaluate and pivot

It’s always helpful to have a retirement date in mind and imagine how you want to spend your retirement years. But there can be turns in the road. Situations may arise that cause you to change your plans in order to achieve your retirement goals. Here’s a variety of fictional scenarios reflecting real-life situations that lead to changes in retirement plans.

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Taxes Tax Planning

Tax on Split Income with Children

Think income splitting is only for spouses? Read up on the various ways you can split income with children, and save more tax as a family.

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Financial Planning Value of Advice

Why is financial planning important?

Financial planning is an ongoing process, providing direction for achieving your goals through proper management of your financial situation. It takes a holistic view of your lifestyle, your needs and your priorities. A financial plan is a tool to analyze your financial situation and provide projections that can assist you in understanding your true situation and whether you can achieve your goals.

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Financial Planning

Beneficiary Designation & Marital Status

Life happens and circumstances change. If your marital status has changed, or is in the process of changing, there are many planning issues to consider. For example, you may want to ensure that life insurance proceeds will reach your intended beneficiaries.

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Retirement Planning TFSA

Ways to use a TFSA in retirement

During income-earning years, a Tax-Free Savings Account (TFSA) can be used to fund numerous expenses – a child’s education, family trips, a wedding, just about anything. Once you retire, you’ll discover that a TFSA is just as versatile, helping you to meet a variety of needs unique to retirement.

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COVID-19 Taxes

Claiming Home Office Expenses on Tax Return

The opportunity to deduct home office expenses on personal tax returns has become a popular topic as more and more employees are working from home as a result of COVID-19. Whether you may claim home office expenses depends on a variety of factors.

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Retirement Planning Taxes

CPP/QPP Pension Sharing Benefits

Couples receiving pension income have two possible options to adjust their taxable incomes and reduce their total taxes.

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Financial Planning

RESP: Important estate planning tips

If you have set up and contributed to a Registered Education Savings Plan (RESP) for one or more of your children or grandchildren, you’ve done some valuable planning for their future education. But your planning could unravel if you do not also address what is to happen with the RESP when you die.

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Wills Estate Planning Trusts

Property of a minor

As Canadian parents and guardians are responsible for the support and education of their children, it may come as a surprise that in most Canadian jurisdictions, parents and guardians are not automatically entitled to control their minor children’s property.

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Retirement Planning

Thinking of purchasing a vacation property?

It’s a curious fact that we Canadians, depending on where we live, call a vacation home by different names – a cottage, chalet, country house, camp or cabin. But what they all have in common is that so many owners call their vacation property a source of cherished family time and lifelong memories.

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Tax Planning

Claiming home office expenses

Thankfully, the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) has made it easy for employees to claim home office expenses if you spent more than half of your working hours at home for at least four consecutive weeks in 2020 due to COVID-19. Here are the options available to claim a deduction.

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Saving and Spending

The pandemic and the piggy bank

Just over 12 months ago, provinces and territories responded to the COVID-19 pandemic by declaring states of emergency. Restrictions and lockdowns have affected Canadians in different ways, and one of the starkest differences involves savings. Some people needed to tap into their savings, while others saw their savings accumulate.

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Financial Planning Value of Advice

Financial planning for the future

Say that a couple is struggling with a decision about whether to help their child purchase a home. The couple wonders, and worries, if the cash outlay will interfere with their retirement.

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Retirement Planning Financial Planning

If I had a million dollars

“If I Had a Million Dollars” was a song released by the Barenaked Ladies in 1992. At that time, most of my friends had been married for few years, started to have kids, and perhaps started saving for retirement.

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Estate Planning Wills

When to review your estate plan

It’s easy to think you can put off changes to an estate plan – the plan doesn’t even take effect during your lifetime. But it’s important to react in good time because many changes call for strategies best implemented sooner rather than later. Also, you make estate planning changes now for the same reason you made a will and purchased life insurance: to benefit your loved ones if you pass away prematurely.

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Retirement Planning

Can you retire earlier?

Today, to change a retirement plan often means postponing the date, not moving it up. After all, we’re living longer, and early retirement adds even more years to fund. But there are special circumstances when retiring earlier than planned becomes an option to consider.

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Retirement Planning

Retirement Planning for Couples

For many couples, retiring at the same time just makes sense, plain and simple. You share the pleasure of starting this new chapter of your life together, and you enjoy more time together in retirement. A synchronized retirement can be idyllic.

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Retirement Planning Financial Planning

Financial planning in your 50s and 60s

When you enter your 50s and early 60s, it's time to revisit your financial plan. Learn about critical illness insurance and adjusting portfolios.

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COVID-19

Estate planning during COVID-19

The current COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in many pausing to reflect on their estate and incapacity planning. The barrage of news headlines about the health crisis and forced time at home have understandably led individuals to more thoughtfully consider the plans they have in place or plans they would like to implement. Legal professionals throughout Canada have noticed an increased interest in estate planning in recent weeks.

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COVID-19 Market Volatility Value of Advice Retirement Planning

How to maintain financial peace of mind

When fears over COVID-19 sent markets plummeting in March, investors felt the initial shock. But markets rallied in the following weeks, turning shock to a sense of hope. The trouble is, however, no one knows how long the rebound will take – and it’s been marked by volatility. As an investor, how can you have peace of mind while you’re waiting for your portfolio to recover?

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Estate Planning Estate Tax Inheritance

Should you name a child as executor?

When deciding on your executor, or liquidator in Quebec, it’s quite common to name a child to administer the estate. But if you have more than one child, it’s a decision to make with caution.

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Retirement Planning Financial Planning

How much income do you need in retirement?

A common question people ask about retirement income planning is how much do they need to live on. While some say the rule of thumb is 70% of your pre-retirement income, we want to know “is this enough?”

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Financial Literacy Cash Management Investment Strategies

Teaching your children how to manage money

Today’s youth may prefer to pick up information online, but when it comes to learning about financial life, parents still have some influence. Here are a few teaching moments.

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Financial Planning Taxes

Choosing a Trustee for Your Will

If your will planning involves a testamentary trust for one or more of your beneficiaries, you will need to select appropriate trustees.

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Financial Planning

When a family member needs special care

When you raise a child who has special needs or look after another family member with a disabling medical condition, you spend a lot of extra time providing care. If you also take on the extra financial matters that are involved, it can just be too much. We encourage you to ask for our assistance, so we can make things smoother for you and help improve your family member’s quality of life.

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Retirement Planning

Plan now to minimize OAS clawback later

Ever wonder if you’ll be affected by Old Age Security (OAS) clawback? To give you an idea, OAS benefits are reduced for the July 2020 to June 2021 period when net income for 2019 exceeds $77,580. To minimize OAS clawback, you need to reduce net income. During retirement, an effective strategy is splitting pension income. But several strategies, including the following, can be initiated before retirement arrives.

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Financial Planning

Powers of attorney: When should your power of attorney be effective?

Recently, Fred told his friends George and Jane that his mother was no longer capable of managing her financial affairs. Since she had no power of attorney, Fred had to apply to court to be appointed to look after her affairs, a costly and time-consuming process that was hard on the family. Fred also complained that he would have to report back to the court, potentially every year, to demonstrate that he is handling his mother’s affairs properly.

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Estate Planning Legacy Planning Inheritance

Preparing for Real Estate Contingencies

So much can change between the time your estate plan and related documents are prepared and when they take effect. That’s why it’s important for your estate plan to include back-up plans.

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Market Volatility COVID-19

How did you react to market volatility?

When your investment program was established, you answered questions that helped determine how much risk you were able to tolerate. You had to imagine how you would react to a significant loss in portfolio value.

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Why the money talk matters

It’s never been easy discussing financial matters with family members, whether talking to your parents or adult children. But quite often, there’s one important reason to gather your courage and have the money talk. If you don’t address the issue when it’s on your mind, you may allow problems to develop down the road.

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Money tips for you and your teens

When your children enter their teens, life changes in many ways — including your financial life. Here’s a look at some of the major financial planning themes that arise as you navigate their teenage years.

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Retirement Planning Income Protection Market Volatility Investing Strategies

When to make a move to safety

Many long-term investors wonder if they should take action when markets suffer a downturn or become volatile. Should you sell equities and turn to the safety of cash? Should you stop making regular investments? Such thoughts are understandable, but these actions can decrease portfolio value over the long term

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Insight Articles Estate Planning Retirement Accounts Retirement Planning

What to do when it’s time to help your parents

In matters of financial affairs, the day may come — if it hasn’t arrived already — when you’ll be parenting your parents.

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Retirement Planning Estate Planning Tax Planning RRSP TFSA

Why Personalize Your Retirement Plan

When retirement arrives, investment planning changes from creating wealth to stretching your dollars.

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Retirement Planning Incapacity

Prepare your executor

Unless you prepare properly, your executor might end up feeling more like a detective. See what important steps you can take now to make sure the process goes smoothly.

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Inheritance

How to Divide Assets

Think of the inheritance you plan on leaving to your children. If you have an asset that can’t be easily divided, you’ll want to read this.

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Retirement Planning

Retirement and the “where” factor

Closing your eyes and envisioning where you’ll retire might seem like a flight of fancy. Find out why it’s actually a constructive retirement planning exercise.

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Financial Planning

Why financial life should involve both spouses

It’s okay that one spouse plans vacations and the other keeps track of relatives’ birthdays. But when it comes to financial matters, we’ve got several reasons why both spouses should participate.

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Estate Planning

Should you help your child buy a home?

If you’re wondering whether to open the Bank of Mom and Dad to help a child buy a home, you face a difficult decision. We’ve got a pros-and-cons analysis to make it a little easier.

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Inheritance Estate Planning

Setting Up Inheritance for Your Heirs

Think trusts are only for the rich and famous? You’ll see a variety of uses that show why trusts can meet the estate planning needs of just about anyone.

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Financial Planning

Prepare for the unexpected

The pandemic taught us that anything can happen at any time. We’ve got several solutions you can put in place in advance to manage unexpected situations that may arise.

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RRIF Estate Tax

RRIF, meet JLTD

If assets remain in a Registered Retirement Income Fund (RRIF), the estate may owe tax equal to about half the value. But a couple can offset the tax with a strategy you may not know about.

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Retirement Planning

What to do when retirement approaches

Do you want to retire with financial tasks and to-dos or financial peace of mind? Take these wealth planning measures in the years ahead and retire comfortably.

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Estate Planning

Single? Estate planning is still important

You may think estate planning is easier for a single person than for someone who’s married with children. Find out why it could be just the opposite.

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Tax Planning Estate Planning

Time for a vacation property chat?

Parents may assume their children will eventually want the cottage, cabin or chalet. The children may love the recreation and relaxation, but not the responsibility that comes with it. Discover why you need to start the conversation now.

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Financial Planning Investment Strategies

Life decisions and the financial factor

Important life decisions can be tough. When they involve a financial factor, as many do, we can help ensure you’ve got the information you need to make the best choices.

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Financial Planning Family Conversations Saving and Spending

Managing financial life in a second marriage

One in four Canadian couples are in their second or subsequent marriage. See what changes in your financial life the second time around.

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Family Conversations Financial Literacy

Prepare your children for financial responsibility

Youth who develop financial literacy at home will manage money better once they leave. Find out about four principles and practices you can help them acquire.

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RRIF

Managing your RRIF withdrawals effectively

In retirement, every dollar you save in tax is more money to support your lifestyle. We’ve got ways to save tax by strategically making Registered Retirement Income Fund (RRIF) withdrawals.

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Financial Planning

Do you and your parents have powers of attorney?

It’s a common misconception that if a person loses the ability to manage their finances, their spouse or child can automatically take over. Learn the truth of the matter.

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