A Challenge for New Clients: How to Choose a Trusted Advisor

If you’re in business for yourself, you have a unique opportunity to build wealth in an asset class that others don’t have: equity in a business enterprise that some day may be sold for millions of dollars. In addition, that business can spin off income for family members that can provide significant tax advantages, done well. Understanding how to realize on this asset requires the help of a trusted financial advisory team. Who should be on that team and how do you find them? This is a challenge your next new business clients may wrestle with. Here are some tips on how you can open discussions to help them:

“We can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.”  Albert Einstein

There are so many reasons to count our blessings as Canadians; in the financial arena, one of them is the growth in Canadian wealth over time. While we are behind the US by 22% in terms of wealth per adult ($270,200 vs. $344,700), in Canada wealth has grown at an average rate of just under 6% in the period 2000-2016, and an average of 6.5% since 2010. Why are we so lucky?

Last week Knowledge Bureau Report discussed who’s eligible to make a moving expense claim. This week: what’s deductible and what’s not?

Are you using your automobile for work or for your own business? Perhaps you are unsure whether you should make a claim for auto expenses this year; or maybe you suspect you aren’t claiming everything you are entitled to. This is a good reason to see your tax advisor, and make sure you are prepared to make a full claim.

Who pays higher marginal tax rates: the executive earning $250,000, or the family that makes do on $60,000? If you said the family, you would be correct. That’s because marginal tax rates are higher in income brackets that are impacted by the clawback of social benefits and tax credits. But when does that happen?

In gratitude for your continued support, please accept our very best wishes for the holiday season. May it be restful, joyful and peaceful; and may your new year be blessed with good health and prosperity.