Category Archives: Tax

Holding Cash in Your Portfolio
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Do you have money sitting in a chequing or savings account making very little (if any) interest? Although cash should not be a long-term method of growing your wealth, there is a time and place to use cash to your advantage within your financial plan. Cash can support your current and short-term financial needs as well as provide you with protection and liquidity. With current interest rates at recent memory highs, more clients are asking about GICs and high interest rates. While I generally recommend investing in a diversified mutual fund portfolio for long-term investments, cash & GICs are finding…

Happy New Year
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While many people are making their New Years Resolutions about health and wellness, consider committing to your financial wellbeing too! Here are a few things to think about when writing down your 2022 goals. Top up your TFSAs or consider making a regular contribution The new maximum limit for 2022 is $6,000, however if you have not maximized your contributions in previous years then you will have more than the annual limit to contribute. If you don’t have the cash available for a larger deposit, you could consider making regular bi-weekly or monthly contributions throughout the calendar year to maximize…

Tax Tips for 2020
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Although many tax planning considerations have not changed, there has been a lot of shifting supports from the government to get us all through the Covid-19 pandemic. We want to ensure you are prepared for filing your tax returns this year. Working from home If you have been working from home you are eligible to claim some expenses. Since so many people are doing this for the first time, the government has a simplified method to claim those expenses for 2020. The CRA is offering a “flat fee” for work-from-home deductions for 2020. Your employer does not need to fill…

Work from Home Tax Benefits
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With the COVID-19 pandemic forcing hundreds of thousands of Canadians to work from home, some of us have endured increased costs to do so. Whether you’ve had to buy new equipment (not reimbursed or paid for by your employer), or just had an increase in your utilities due to being locked down at home while working full time, there are tax breaks you may be eligible to claim. Most self-employed individuals are well versed in the WFH (work from home) tax advantages, but if you’re an employee who is now working at home (whether just temporarily, or more permanently going…

Thoughts for Difficult Times
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I think that we are all feeling various levels of unease at present; from slightly off kilter to all-out anxiety. Watching the numbers of new infections of COVID-19 every day certainly doesn’t help, nor do the wild swings in markets help calm us. We are living in a world where we are bombarded with daily news and it can be exhausting trying to keep up with it all. As we talk to many of our clients, we find that everyone’s approach to coping is different. Some people are glued to their TVs and radios, others are choosing to use this…

Should I put my kids on title of my principal residence?
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This is becoming one of the more common questions asked by our clients in recent years. A person or couple’s home, if owned, is often one of their largest assets, so people look for ways to limit the probate due on these assets. But you have to be very careful about putting an adult child as a joint owner because there can be some serious consequences. 1. A principal residence is one of the few assets that gets preferential income tax treatment, so losing this potential benefit is something you want to avoid. In most cases, the child will not…

Generosity Helps Everyone
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Canadians are generally a very giving lot – 84% of Canadians made a charitable donation in 2010; the last year Statistics Canada kept records. Between time spent volunteering in a wide range of organizations and money donated to worthy causes, philanthropy in its various guises seems to be in our DNA. Our reasons for giving are as diverse as we are as a people, but according to Imagine Canada, we give out of compassion for others, for a cause we believe in, to make a contribution to our community, or for something that touches us personally. Whatever the reason, we…

Capital Gains on Investments
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2018 was one of very few time periods in investing when investors experienced a one/two hit. You likely received a year-end investment statement reflecting that you experienced some negative returns in your investments over the past year. If you have a non-registered investment account, you may also get a tax slip with a large capital gain showing, which means you may owe more taxes. So why, if your investments lost money over the year, are you having to claim and pay tax on capital gains? First, let me explain how capital gains and losses within a mutual fund work. The…

Cottage Ownership & Taxes
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Don’t fool with the taxman when transferring your cottage By Tim Cestnick Last week I took my son, Win, to Dairy Queen on his eighth birthday. He was half-way through his ice cream when he said: “Dad, people who have a plastic leg have to be careful not to eat too much ice cream – it can hurt them.” Now, I’m no expert on prosthetic limbs. But I had to believe there was a flaw in Win’s thinking. “What makes you think that?” I asked. “Well,” he continued, “I read it in a book at school.” “So, what happens if…