tax planning

A letter arrives from Canada Revenue Agency (CRA). You are being audited. Panic ensues as you wonder what you did wrong and why the CRA is targeting you. 'There must be bigger fish to fry,' you might say to yourself.

The first thing you need to do is relax and take a few deep breaths. If you have a qualified tax advisor on your team, you have nothing to worry about. If you don't, now is a good time to contact a professional tax planner to review your returns and assist you with the audit.

Carl and Cathy are well aware of the substantial tax advantages of making charitable contributions as well as the good feeling they get by helping their favorite charity. In addition to their annual contributions, they would like to bequeath more substantial amounts to their chosen charity in their wills. Some of their more affluent friends do this. However, Carl and Cathy do not feel that they are able to.

It's hard to believe that we're already nearing the end of 2019. This has been an extremely busy year and one with so, so much to talk about. While we had a rough ending to 2018 on the market, we had an excellent start to this year. For the most part, that's carried on. It's early in November as I write this though, so hopefully, that hasn't changed by the time you're reading it!

Do you know the real rate of return on your investments? Generally, Canadians measure the success of their investments based only on the rate of return. While it provides a good snapshot of whether an investment is doing well or not, it is not the only criterion for a true picture of success. A good portfolio is based not only on the return, but also by the tax implications of the investments.

Similar to the situation of individual Canadians, small business owners must deal with a variety of financial challenges in order to grow their businesses. Besides managing issues like cash flow and assets, small businesses must also think about taxes on income.

Without a doubt, tax return filing can be an intimidating experience for many business owners, but the process can be greatly simplified simply by keeping good financial records.

There is a lot to talk about this month as we’re right into Tax Season now and as I write this, there are some pretty serious Tariffs being proposed by the US Government which has shaken the market. We’ve had such a long run up that investors have almost forgot how volatility can feel but we’ve got a lot of that since February! As always, this will affect your Equity Positions a lot more than it will for Balanced Mandates and Fixed Income.

Not only have we had a pile of snow and some awfully cold weather this February, we've also had an avalanche of volatility in the market! After a huge run up on a number of Stock Exchanges around the country, we finally witnessed a pull-back. By the end of Feb. 9th, we had seen an official correction on a number of markets. While this is never a lot of fun to watch, it comes with the territory and in some cases, can be healthy. The fundamentals still appear to be strong so most are chalking this up to profit taking.