Personal Finance

This coming July 1 will be particularly special. Sure, Canada will be celebrating its 158th birthday that day, but even more exciting for some of us is that the Canada Revenue Agency ’s prescribed interest rate will drop to three per cent on that date, providing a greater opportunity to split income with a spouse

Many tax practitioners, including me, have called for tax reform over the years, but it doesn’t seem to resonate with the average Canadian even though it should. Tax reform for many politicians generally means appeasing their voter base with new tax measures that are often shallow in substance and miss the mark from a good

Canada’s population over the past nine years has grown 15.8 per cent and now tops 41.5 million, so you would expect the federal government’s expenditures to increase over that time period as well. Although population growth is not perfectly correlated to expenditure growth — political ideology and spending commitments, rising interest rates , inflation and

Spousal registered retirement savings plans (RRSPs) have been around for decades, and for many couples, these plans can play an important role in reducing tax upon retirement. But, they can be complicated, and it’s important to understand how they work and when they are most appropriately used in retirement. Let’s review the contribution rules, and

The United States House of Representatives last week passed Donald Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act , a voluminous and complex piece of proposed legislation that contains numerous tax amendments that could end up hurting Canadian pension plans and other investors. The act includes things such as making permanent certain personal tax rate reductions (which

With the 2024 tax season now over for most of us (those with self-employment income and their spouse or partner still have until June 16 to file), the preliminary tax filing stats have been released by the Canada Revenue Agency . Of the 29.9 million personal tax returns filed to date, 94 per cent of

Canada’s federal finance minister has announced that a budget will not be presented during the upcoming session of Parliament, but there will be a fall economic statement (FES) presented later this year, which surprised many and it should. Isn’t one of the basic constitutional principles of our democracy that taxpayer money cannot be spent without