Insights

Whenever retirees hear the word “probate” they immediately feel the urge to avoid it at all costs. This may cause them to take steps that they believe are harmless and will allow them to avoid this process. Commonly, one of these steps is adding their adult children as joint owners on their bank accounts and some investment accounts. The idea being that they can continue to enjoy the assets while they are alive, they can get their kids’ help managing the assets as they age, and when they eventually pass away, those assets can go around the estate. But what many retirees don’t understand is the risks and issues that they are taking on when they make these changes.

The Canada Dental Care Plan is now rolling out to more Canadians, including Canadian seniors and retirees. And in this video, I'm going to talk about who can apply to the Canada Dental Care Benefit as of January 2024, what the timelines are for the plan to be rolled out to more Canadians as the spring wears on, what the process is to apply, what you can expect in terms of coverage, and the action steps you can take if you want to make yourself available to the Canada dental care plan.

Many investors understand that they can expect volatility in their investment portfolios. But, when the storm clouds gather and they experience temporary declines in their account balances, they are prone to panic. For many investors, the risk of making an emotion decision at time of market stress can make the difference between their retirement success or failure. In this video I am going to walk you through a simple tool that you can use to help keep you on track when markets are volatile.

The CRA has introduced new tax rules that take effect for your 2023 tax filings. The most significant changes come in the area of trust reporting. You may be thinking to yourself “I am not a trustee or a beneficiary of a trust, so I have nothing to worry about”. Not so fast. The new rules may put requirements on far more Canadians than most people realize. The impact of non-compliance can be significant fines and penalties, so you want to make sure that you remain on the right side of things with the CRA.

Old Age Security is an important benefit for Canadian retirees. But if you earn too much money in retirement, those Old Age Security benefits can be clawed back from you. And there are circumstances where retirees who are not necessarily of high income can have temporary spikes in their retirement income that might cause their Old Age Security benefits to be clawed back.

This week, the government of Canada announced their 2023 Fall Economic Update. The update included a number of measures that are going to impact the finances of Canadians. And the document itself was over 140 pages long. So I went through it and I pulled out the four items that I believe could have the biggest impact on people who are either already retired or who are getting ready to retire. We're going to walk through those four items and I'm going to explain them in a clear and concise way.

In this video, we're going to look at that question through the lens of a monthly cashflow planner. It's my firm belief that a solid financial plan in retirement starts with cashflow, laying out what we need to have coming in the door each month so that we can live comfortably and stay comfortably retired. Then we're going to work our way into the financial plan. We're going to stress test this financial plan, and we're going to come to an answer regarding how much money we need to have saved up to augment other income sources that we're going to have in retirement, specifically Canada Pension Plan and Old Age Security.

If you have been diligently saving throughout your working life, you may be disappointed to learn that at the end of the year you turn 71, you can no longer contribute to an RRSP account in your name. That means no more sweet tax-deductible RRSP contributions. Or, does it? In this video, I am going to describe 2 strategies that you can use to make tax deductible contributions to AN RRSP account that you can use even after you turn 71 years old.

Many retirees know that they have the ability to “split” certain types of retirement income. Pension income, and RRIF income (provided that the annuitant is over the age of 65) can be split with a lower income spouse in order to average down your tax bill. In many cases, retirees are surprised to learn that CPP benefits cannot technically be split on the tax return. They can, however, be shared. CPP sharing can produce the same effect as income splitting but it’s not a perfect process and it takes some work to figure out whether it makes sense for you. In this video, I am going to explain what CPP sharing is and how it works, and the conditions that need to exist so that CPP sharing makes sense for you. Then I am going to close with an example of a hypothetical retirement couple who used CPP pension sharing to lower their lifetime tax bill. And if we haven’t met yet, my name is Mark Walhout. I created this channel to share ideas and concepts that I am using to help people with retirement every day. If you want to get more videos like these consider subscribing to the channel.