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 asked in our October poll, “With the opportunity to use pension income splitting in the future to reduce taxes, is investing in a spousal RRSP still a good idea?”, and the clear answer was “yes”.

The third annual Financial Literacy month was launched last week by The Honourable Minister of State (Finance) Kevin Sorenson and Lucie Tedesco, the new Commissioner of the Financial Consumer Agency of Canada (FCAC).

The maximum pensionable earnings under the Canada Pension Plan (CPP) for 2014 will increase to $52,500 in 2014, which is an increase from $51,100 in 2013, while the basic exemption remains at the current $3,500 level.

Agathe Côté, Deputy Governor of the Bank of Canada, spoke of one of my favorite subjects – the Promise of Potential – at the CFA Society Winnipeg/Manitoba Chambers of Commerce in Winnipeg on October 29.

Carl Gustafson, a professional engineer (P.Eng.) and a director of Norall Group Contracting Inc., was fined late in October in the Ontario Court of Justice in Thunder Bay in the amount of $84,417 for failing to report $459,174 in income. 

Fight with the neighbor? An ex-partner? There are tax reasons to make up and repair burnt bridges: tax snitching can be nasty.