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Financial Issues & Answers for Everyone
A thorough analysis of today’s financial news—delivered weekly to your inbox or via social media. As part of Knowledge Bureau’s interactive network, the Report covers current issues on the tax and financial services landscape and provides a wide range of professional benefits, including access to peer-to-peer blogs, opinion polls, online lessons, and vital industry information from Canada’s only multi-disciplinary financial educator.
May 2025 Poll
Does the new government’s promise, expected soon, to cut the lowest personal income tax rate by 1% to 14%, go far enough to help Canadians impacted by high costs? What are alternatives in your view?
The RWM Difference: Focus on Financial Stability
What’s keeping your clients up at night? How do we help clients accumulate, grow, preserve and transition wealth with the continued volume of change coming from new governments in Ottawa and Washington? How do we temper harm from difficult relationships people have with money? Share your thoughts on proactively managing client concerns with strategy, process, and answers to these three critical questions, as we hear case study approaches from our panelists at the April 23 Introduction to Real Wealth Management™ Orientation. Learn more and then join these professionals who are the change-makers of the financial services by earning your own specialized credentials as an RWM™.
CRA Service Levels Rate Poorly in Advisor Poll
Over 96% of advisors surveyed in last month’s Knowledge bureau Report poll said that despite ramping up various initiatives and staffing levels, CRA’s service levels have worsened significantly and the commentary around this was interesting. For the few who said yes, there were no specific embellishing comments, but for those who said no, there was a lot of scathing detail. Take a look:
Despite Inflation, No Raise for Seniors in Q2
Despite the fact that the cost of living seems to be increasing in the grocery story and when paying for transportation and costly medication, Old Age Security benefits will remain unchanged for the April to June 2025 quarter. While increases to OAS over the past year have been 2% from April 2024 to April 2025, the cost of living has increased more, as explained more fully below. You’ll also be interested in the prescribed interest rates applied to tax refunds and balances due, adjusted quarterly:
Quebec Budget Tabled March 25 Focuses on Record Deficit
Finance Minister Eric Girard tabled his 7th budget on March 25th. This is the most detailed, comprehensive and far-reaching budget we’ve seen from any of the provinces thus far. This budget focuses heavily on spending, producing a record deficit. It also reflects the Quebec government’s preoccupation with U.S. tariffs. The word “tariff” is mentioned no fewer than 161 times in this document.
Transitioning Our Economy Forward: Investing for Impact
We might be distracted by the political, tax and economic shocks dominating the daily news. But from an investment point of view, advisors may be missing something important. The very definition of “wealth maximization” as we have commonly known it, is not resonating there is a reason why: “business as usual” has eroded value and requires a shake up to build the economy we need in the future. The answer, for some, is “impact investing”, and there has never been a better time to consider this.
