New Tax Changes for Caregivers: Alberta Budget

Alberta Finance Minister Nater Horner delivered his second consecutive deficit budget on February 26. The deficit is large at $9.4 billion, which the government attributes largely to declining oil revenues. The document is called Fiscal Plan 2026-2029 meaning that this is a three-year fiscal pan, rather than the typical one-year projection.

The refundable tax credits replacing the Family Tax Cut, Universal Child Care Benefit arrive this week.  What to expect?  Tax and financial advisors could be very busy tending to questions about the whether the size of the cheques is right, and filing 2015 tax returns for delinquent filers.

Leaked documents from CRA have been reported in China, indicating that 50 tax auditors and 35 additional staff have been deployed to crackdown on real estate tax cheats in Vancouver.  CRA confirmed to the CBC that indeed 339 audits have reaped $14 million in tax recoveries in 2015/2016.   Here’s how to stay out of trouble.

A just-released synopsis of the FINRA National Financial Capabilities survey of close to 30,000 Americans from June to October 2015 showed a stunning lack of financial understanding there; at a time when wealth and income inequality is at an extreme not seen since World War II. But Canadians did not do much better.

It’s been a month of turmoil in France, Turkey, the US and even Brazil.  In such times people consider alternative investments, such as gold (traditionally) and bitcoins (non-traditionally), as safe havens.

The province of BC has decided to take the Canada Pension Plan changes to its citizens, rather than signing on to the federal agreement to raise rates and change benefits, indicating it thinks the federal government should do the same.

There’s the old way of doing retirement income planning: how to spend every last dime before you die. (Not very precise, given that we can’t usually pinpoint the day.)  Good thing there’s the new way:  retirement income averaging and layering.