The B.C. Supreme Court issued the decision earlier this week
The Supreme Court of British Columbia has certified a proposed class action against the operators of an alleged Ponzi scheme.
In a decision issued on April 2, a class action has been certified against the operators of Letan Investments Management, Virginia and Patrick Tan, and their son, Marcus, along with related companies.
Winnipeg, MB, April 3, 2019. . . Three iconic Canadian brands are coming together under one brand – Canada Life – to better serve their more than 13 million customer relationships across Canada and to position the companies for even stronger growth.
Instead of recession, find out what inversion might signal
Certain U.S. yield curves have inverted recently—a potential early warning sign that recession could be a year or so away. However, in the current cycle, inversion might be signalling something different to investors.
Writing an estate plan is important if you own personal assets but is all the more crucial if you also own your own business. This is due to the additional business complexities that need to be addressed, including tax issues, business succession and how to handle bigger and more complex estates. Seeking professional help from an accountant, lawyer or financial advisor is an effective way of dealing with such complexities. As a starting point, ask yourself these seven key questions and, if you answer “no” to any of them, it may highlight an area that you need to take remedial action towards.
Have you made a contingency plan for what will happen to your business if you are incapacitated or die unexpectedly?
Have you and any co-owners of your business made a buy-sell agreement?
If so, is the buy-sell agreement funded by life insurance?
If you have decided that a family member will inherit your business when you die, have you provided other family members with assets of an equal value?
Have you appointed a successor to your business?
Are you making the most of the lifetime capital gains exemption ($835,714 in 2017) on your shares of the business, if you are a qualified small business?
Are you taking care to minimize any possible tax liability that may be payable by your estate in the event of your death?
Estate freezes
The process of freezing the value of your business at a particular date is an increasingly common way of protecting your estate from a large capital gains tax bill if your business increases in value. To achieve this, usually the shares in the business that have the highest growth potential are redistributed to others, often your children, meaning that they will be liable for the tax on any increase in their value in the future. In exchange, you will receive new shares allowing you to maintain control of the business with a key difference – the value of the shares is frozen so that your tax liability is lower and that of your estate when you die will also be reduced.
Canadian homeowners have some decisions to make when they enter retirement.
Retirement is a time for celebration. But it’s also a time for reflection on your finances, especially the role your home plays in your complete financial picture. And a lot of that depends on if you’re carrying a mortgage into retirement with you.
Helping executors decide how much to keep aside for complicated estates
The purpose of an estate holdback is straightforward: instead of distributing all assets to beneficiaries as soon as possible, the executor “holds back” funds to pay taxes, accounting and legal bills, as well as any other costs incurred during the estate’s administration.
The 2019 budget is titled “Investing in the Middle Class. Here are the highlights from the 2019 Federal Budget.
We’ve put together the key measures for:
Gap between independent and bank channels could be more perception than reality, however
High net-worth (HNW) Canadians who work with financial advisors at independent wealth-management firms are consistently more likely to ascribe positive personality traits to their advisors than HNW clients who work with advisors in the bank-owned brokerage or bank branch channels, according to research from Mississauga, Ont.-based Credo Consulting Inc.
Millennials place greater trust in robo-advisors, compared with older investors
Investors want technology to complement, not replace human advisors, according to a study commissioned by the Park Ridge, Ill.-based Million Dollar Round Table (MDRT).