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Switching it up today and chatting about a very specific section of the Income Tax Act... s. 160. This section can be used to assess one person for the tax debts of another person... it is typically applied between spouses and/or between parents and children. However, some recent case law has resurrected a discussion on this topic, including who is really a "spouse" for the purposes of this section.RESOURCES DISCUSSED ON THIS EPISODESTEP SK - May 7 event on Canadians owning US real estateEnns v. CanadaHarvard PropertiesBarwicz v. HMTKHERE ARE SOME OTHER WAYS TO CONNECT WITH ME:My website! Email: thetaxchickpodcast@gmail.com@tax.chick (IG) LinkedInBe a "Tax Chick VIP"
The Income Tax Bill, 2025 was introduced in the Lok Sabha recently. It seeks to modernise and simplify the Income Tax Act, 1961. While the Bill is indeed shorter in length than the original Act it seeks to replace, there is one major concern: privacy experts believe it institutes a regime of tax surveillance, in complete violation of the Supreme Court judgement in the landmark Justice Puttasamy case where it ruled that privacy is a fundamental right. Tax experts hold that under the provisions of this Bill, the state can claim complete access to the entirety of a person's “virtual digital space” merely on suspicion that she may be hiding income and evading tax. Critics have also said that the Bill does not rationalise monetary thresholds for various compliances and deductions, nor does it provide meaningful revisions in the penalty and prosecution changes. Guest: Deepak Joshi, Advocate-on-Record in the Supreme Court and a qualified Chartered Accountant. Host: G. Sampath, Social Affairs Editor, The Hindu. Edited by Sharmada Venkatasubramanian.
Today marked Richard Ullger's last day with the Royal Gibraltar Police. The outgoing Commissioner of Police is retiring after 37 years of service with the force. Mr Ullger took over from Ian McGrail as Commissioner in July 2020. He was originally set to serve for two years but his appointment was extended twice. An emotional moment for Richard Ullger, as Christine Vasquez confirmed.The cost of the McGrail Inquiry has hit £5.7M. It was 3 million in early April last year, so in the past 12 months the cost has almost doubled. As it is a public inquiry, it's funded by the government with tax payers money. It was called to address public concern about how and why Ian McGrail retired early as police commissioner in 2020. But the fact the cost has risen to 5.7 million points to the many documents prepared by everyone involved in it since the last public hearings. We went through the final day of last week's hearings in detail.Bringing generations together - one card at a time! 'Collectify' is a Young Enterprise team aiming to combine the fun of collection cards, with the education of Gibraltar's cultural figures, landmarks and more. The team consists of 9 individuals, 3 of them joined us in the studio: Jessie Chipol-Nuñez, Celine Cruz and Adi DhanwaniThe Government has proposed amendments to the Income Tax Act 2010 which set out to make tax avoidance harder. The Commissioner of Income Tax would get new powers, including involving a person's professional or regulatory body when it's believed they have submitted, or helped with, a tax return suspected to be inaccurate. We asked Grahame Jackson, the Chair of the Association of Tax Advisers, how the proposed law has gone down among industry professionals.And, Jose Mari Ruiz filled us in on the latest in local sports including the athletics round the rock race, a women's hockey training camp and the latest football results as both Lincoln Red Imps and St Joseph's have their eyes on the Rock Cup. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Witness to Yesterday (The Champlain Society Podcast on Canadian History)
Nicole O'Byrne speaks with Colin Campbell and Robert Raizenne about their book, A History of Canadian Income Tax Volume II, 1948-71. This book offers an in-depth analysis of the creation and enforcement of the 1948 Income Tax Act and its subsequent amendments. It details the policy discussions among senior officials and finance ministers on various tax system matters, drawing extensively from parliamentary debates, government documents, and resources from the Canadian Tax Foundation. Colin Campbell began his career as a political science professor at Mount Allison University before earning his law degree at Western. He practiced as a tax partner at Davies Ward Phillips & Vineberg LLP, specializing in tax planning and representing clients in court. Colin taught at Western Law from 1999 to 2009 as an adjunct, then joined full-time in 2011 as an associate professor. He has written extensively on tax and serves as chair of the Canada Revenue Agency's Offshore Compliance Advisory Committee. Robert Raizenne has extensive experience in tax planning, including cross-border and domestic M&A, corporate reorganizations, international tax, and trusts. He is also an experienced tax litigator. Robert is an adjunct professor of tax law at McGill and the University of Toronto, and a frequent speaker and writer at major tax conferences, including those hosted by the Canadian Tax Foundation and the International Fiscal Association. Image Credit: Osgoode Society Books If you like our work, please consider supporting it: bit.ly/support_WTY. Your support contributes to the Champlain Society's mission of opening new windows to directly explore and experience Canada's past.
avigating Gray Areas in Insurance and Tax Law In this episode, host Jason Pereira, alongside guest Jason Watt, embarks on an in-depth discussion about the gray areas in insurance and tax law that Canadian business owners need to be aware of. They explore complex issues surrounding the Income Tax Act's treatment of insurance, the potential risks involved with current sales tactics, and the specifics regarding corporate-owned insurance and individual policies. They discuss critical illness insurance, the implications of using corporate assets for personal loans, the nuances of the Capital Dividend Account (CDA), the mechanics of health spending accounts, and group benefits. They also touch upon the responsibilities and potential liabilities for insurance agents and financial planners. This episode aims to provide clarity and caution on often misunderstood and convoluted topics in the insurance field. 00:00 Introduction to Financial Planning for Canadian Business Owners 00:11 Gray Areas in Insurance and Tax Law 01:04 Historical Context of Insurance in the Income Tax Act 02:01 Critical Illness Insurance and Tax Code Gaps 02:59 Taxation of Corporate-Owned Insurance 05:06 Complexities of Borrowing Against Insurance Policies 10:45 Offshore Insurance Arrangements 13:56 Capital Dividend Account (CDA) Explained 17:05 Critical Illness Insurance with Return of Premium 20:43 Understanding Actuarial Valuation for ROP 21:06 Critical Illness Insurance: Real-Life Scenarios 21:56 Tax Implications and Full Disclosure 24:21 Group Benefits: Tax Outcomes and Gray Areas 29:14 Health Spending Accounts: Rules and Risks 33:43 Shareholder Benefits and Tax Risks 37:49 Agent's Obligations and Client Protection 41:52 CRA's Response and Tax Court Realities 45:11 Conclusion and Final ThoughtsResources Mentioned:Facebook – Jason Pereira's FacebookLinkedIn – Jason Pereira's LinkedInWoodgate.com – Sponsor Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
This is the Catchup on 3 Things by The Indian Express and I'm Ichha Sharma.Today is the 14th of February and here are this week's headlines.Prime Minister Narendra Modi embarked on a four-day trip to France and the US, starting Monday. In France, Modi co-chaired the Artificial Intelligence Action Summit with French President Emmanuel Macron from 10 to 12 of February. During his visit, he also inaugurated India's first consulate in Marseille and paid tribute to Indian soldiers at the Mazargues War Cemetery. Before embarking on his visit Modi referred to both Macron and US President Donald Trump as his "friends" and emphasized strengthening international cooperation in the fields of technology and diplomacy.Meanwhile, Manipur's Chief Minister, N Biren Singh, resigned, setting off discussions about his replacement. The BJP's central leadership is expected to take time in finalizing a consensus candidate. Governor Ajay Kumar Bhalla has asked Singh to remain in office until alternative arrangements are made. Meanwhile, Singh recommended suspending the Assembly, allowing time for MLAs to agree on a new leader. With no clear majority support for a successor, the Centre may consider imposing President's Rule. The resignation led to the nullification of an earlier order to convene the Assembly.In another news making headline, Ranveer Allahbadia, founder of the popular YouTube channel ‘Beer Biceps', has become the subject of a Mumbai police probe for the allegedly obscene comments he made during a guest appearance on Samay Raina YouTube show ‘India's Got Latent'. Maharashtra cyber police summoned several celebrities, including comedian Tanmay Bhatt, actor Rakhi Sawant, and influencer Uorfi Javed.Meanwhile, Samay Raina's lawyer sought more time for her client as he is travelling overseas, but the state cyber police refused to give any time and served him a second notice asking him to remain present before them on 17th of February. In other news, the Uttarakhand High Court addressed concerns about the Uniform Civil Code of Uttarakhand Act, 2024, particularly regarding live-in relationships. The court emphasized the importance of self-respect and privacy, especially for children born from such relationships. Chief Justice G Narender questioned the regulation of live-ins and the declaration of such marriages as void or criminal. The petition challenging these provisions highlights concerns about the infringement of religious rights and the adverse impact on individuals involved in live-in relationships.Meanwhile, in news from the parliament, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman introduced the new Income Tax bill in Lok Sabha on Thursday. The new Income Tax Bill will replace the six-decade old Income Tax Act and will likely come into effect from 1st of April, 2026. With no major structural changes in the new Bill, experts say its majorly a simplification exercise and its key features are — crisp language, removal of extra provisos and explanations along with expanded definition of income. In the new I-T Bill, virtual digital assets have been included in the definition of property to be counted as a capital asset of the assessee and several provisions have been provided in tabular format such as TDS provisions, presumptive taxation rates, assessment time limits among others.This was the Catch Up on 3 Things by the Indian Express
Welcome to Top of the Morning by Mint, your weekday newscast that brings you five major stories from the world of business. It's Friday, February 14, 2025. This is Nelson John, let's get started. Top Indian business schools are witnessing a resurgence in hiring activities, despite uncertainties stemming from global political developments. This rebound is attributed to the robust growth of India's economy, which has bolstered corporate confidence and led to an increased demand for management graduates. Companies across sectors such as technology, finance, and consulting are actively recruiting, offering competitive packages to secure top talent reports Devina sengupta & Pritista Bagi. However, global political events, including trade tensions and policy shifts, have introduced elements of unpredictability. These developments have prompted organizations to reassess their international strategies, potentially influencing the nature and volume of roles offered to graduates. Despite these challenges, the overall hiring sentiment remains optimistic, with firms focusing on candidates who can navigate complex global scenarios and drive growth in uncertain times. While global political dynamics present challenges, the strong domestic economic environment ensures that top Indian business schools continue to experience healthy hiring trends.Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman introduced the Income Tax Bill 2025 in the Lok Sabha yesterday. The much-anticipated new Bill will not introduce new taxes but only simplifies the language of the existing Income Tax Act of 1961 and enhances clarity for taxpayers. Some of the key highlights include: Reduction of Obsolete Provisions: Numerous outdated and redundant sections have been eliminated to streamline the tax code.Consolidation of Sections: Related provisions, especially those concerning salaries and deductions, have been grouped together for easier reference.Introduction of ‘Tax Year': The bill introduces the concept of a “tax year,” aligning it with the financial year to reduce confusion.Taxpayer's Charter: A charter outlining the rights and obligations of taxpayers has been introduced to promote transparency and trust.Faceless Jurisdiction: Provisions have been made for faceless assessments to minimize direct contact between taxpayers and authorities, reducing potential biases.Enhanced Compliance Measures: The bill empowers the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) to establish tax administration rules and implement digital tax monitoring systems without requiring frequent legislative amendments. Those were some of the key highlights of the new income tax bill.. Now this Bill, represents a significant step toward modernizing India's tax framework, aiming for greater simplicity, transparency, and taxpayer-friendliness. The new provisions are set to take effect from April 1, 2026, providing taxpayers ample time to adapt to the changes. Quantum computing is making big leaps forward, but most businesses aren't paying attention because they're busy with other tech priorities like AI. A startup called PsiQuantum, based in California, aims to build a fully functional quantum computer by 2027. Unlike other companies, they are using existing computer chip factories to speed up the process. Despite these advancements, a poll at the Wall Street Journal's CIO Network Summit revealed that none of the attending tech executives were actively exploring quantum computing applications for their businesses. Many are currently more focused on areas like artificial intelligence and adapting to evolving technology policies. However, India is making significant strides in quantum computing through government-led initiatives & research programs through the National Quantum Mission and collaborations with global tech firms like IBM, Google, and Microsoft who are partnering with Indian firms and universities to train talent in quantum technologies. India's investments in quantum computing are expected to transform industries like finance, healthcare, defense, and logistics in the coming years.The International Finance Corporation (IFC), part of the World Bank Group, has invested ₹860 crore (approximately $98.35 million) in India's first sustainability-linked bond issued by Cube Highways Trust (Cube InvIT). The funds from this bond will be used to acquire NAM Expressway Limited, a key highway that links Chennai and Hyderabad. Additionally, the investment will support Cube InvIT's long-term objectives, including initiatives focused on sustainability and social inclusion. As the main investor, IFC's involvement is expected to attract more capital, promoting the development of India's road infrastructure while adhering to global ESG standards, reports subshas narayan. Global investment firm Carlyle has acquired controlling stakes in two Indian auto parts manufacturers, Highway Industries and Roop Automotives, to create a diversified auto components platform. Highway Industries specializes in powertrain parts, while Roop Automotives produces steering system assemblies and exports to Europe and North America. The founders of both companies will retain significant stakes and continue to be involved in the business. Carlyle aims to help these companies leverage operational synergies, enhance capabilities, and expand capacities to deliver greater value to their customers. This move reflects Carlyle's strategy to build a significant presence in India's auto components sector, focusing on companies that cater to electric vehicles and have strong export potential.
This is the Catchup on 3 Things by The Indian Express and I'm Flora Swain.Today is the 13th of February and here are the headlines.Prime Minister Narendra Modi is set to hold talks with US President Donald Trump, after his meeting with the country's intelligence chief Tulsi Gabbard. PM Modi is currently on a two-day visit to the United States, landing in Washington DC after wrapping up his visit to France where he co-chaired the Paris AI Action Summit alongside French President Emmanuel Macron. PM Modi is set to be the third foreign leader to be hosted by the White House since President Trump took office on January 20 for the second term.Meanwhile, in news from the parliament, Union Minister for Finance Nirmala Sitharaman introduced the new Income Tax bill in Lok Sabha. The new Income Tax Bill will replace the six-decade old Income Tax Act and will likely come into effect from April 1, 2026. With no major structural changes in the new Bill, experts say its majorly a simplification exercise and its key features are — crisp language, removal of extra provisos and explanations along with expanded definition of income. In the new I-T Bill, virtual digital assets have been included in the definition of property to be counted as a capital asset of the assessee and several provisions have been provided in tabular format such as tax deducted at source provisions, presumptive taxation rates, assessment time limits among others.In other news, The Adani Group has withdrawn from a 484 megawatt wind project in northern Sri Lanka after the government in Colombo allegedly moved to renegotiate the terms of the project. Adani Green Energy Ltd told Sri Lanka's Board of Investment yesterday that it would “respectfully withdraw” from the wind project following discussions with officials who indicated that fresh committees would be formed to “renegotiate the project proposal”. The wind project has been under intense scrutiny since the election of Sri Lanka's President Anura Kumara Dissanayake in September last year, after he promised to cancel the “corrupt” project in the runup to the elections.Meanwhile, facing growing revenue and fiscal deficits and a mounting debt, the Mamata Banerjee government diverted some of its spending on social welfare from its flagship Lakshmir Bhandar scheme to one for building rural houses, in the Budget tabled yesterday. The Chief Minister, who has accused the Centre of not releasing “a single paisa” for the PM Awas Yojana in Bengal, had announced the Banglar Bari housing scheme in December last year.In news from Maharashtra, Shiv Sena (UBT) leader Aaditya Thackeray met Congress leader Rahul Gandhi in Delhi today amid speculations of trouble within the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) alliance in Maharashtra after NCP (SP) chief Sharad Pawar recently felicitated Shiv Sena chief and Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Eknath Shinde. Thackeray, the former Maharashtra minister, is also likely to meet AAP national convenor and former Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal later in the day.This was the Catch Up on 3 Things by the Indian Express
It's Wednesday, January 8th, A.D. 2025. This is The Worldview in 5 Minutes heard on 125 radio stations and at www.TheWorldview.com. I'm Adam McManus. (Adam@TheWorldview.com) By Jonathan Clark Muslims set new convert's house on fire, killing whole family A Christian family in Uganda, Africa died for their faith last month. Back in November, 64-year-old Kaiga Muhammad, his wife Sawuya Kaiga and their son Swagga Amuza Kaiga, age 26, came to faith in Christ through a local church. The pastor of the church said the family requested prayer for their son who had malaria. The pastor told Morning Star News, “We prayed for the son, and immediately he was restored to good health.” However, Muslims in the area found out about the family's conversion to Christianity. On December 26th, they set the family's house on fire, killing all three. Please pray for persecuted brothers and sisters in Christ in Uganda. Psalm 116:15 says, “Precious in the sight of the LORD is the death of His saints.” Christian religious liberty in Canadian crosshairs The Evangelical Fellowship of Canada warns that new government recommendations would curtail religious freedoms in Canada. The recommendations come from a Finance Committee report at the end of last year. Recommendation 429 says the government should “no longer provide charitable status to anti-abortion organizations.” In addition, it says the Income Tax Act should be amended to “provide a definition of a charity which would remove the privileged status of ‘advancement of religion' as a charitable purpose.” The Evangelical Fellowship of Canada said, “This change, if adopted, would have a far-reaching and devastating impact - on religious charities, the people they serve, and Canadian society. Just over 40% of Canada's registered charities advance religion. This proposal would destabilize the charitable sector in Canada.” Facebook/Instagram kisses “fact checking” goodbye In the United States, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced yesterday the tech company is ending fact checking on its social media platforms. Meta is the parent company of Facebook and Instagram. Zuckerberg said, “We're going to get back to our roots and focus on reducing mistakes, simplifying our policies and restoring free expression on our platforms. More specifically, here's what we're going to do. First, we're going to get rid of fact checkers and replace them with community notes similar to X, starting in the U.S.” Life News celebrated the decision, noting, “More practically, that means Facebook is finally going to stop discriminating against pro-life conservatives and it will get rid of the liberal fact-checkers it has used for years to suppress conservative content.” West losing control of world economy In economic news, the West is slowly losing control of the world economy. The U.S. dollar's share of global currencies fell again last year to 57.4%. That's down from 72% in the year 2000, dropping a rate of about 1% per year. Bitcoin and gold skyrocket Bitcoin scraped $102,000 on Monday. The cryptocurrency market cap has hit $3.64 trillion. Plus, gold's market capitalization is estimated at $17.9 trillion and gold's value is up 129% in seven years. Silver is at $1.7 trillion. Cryptocurrency's market cap is up 10-fold since early 2018. Amazon has improved its market capitalization 16-fold in ten years, and Tesla's market capitalization value is up 24-fold in seven years. Ironically, Tesla's stock rose 71% last year, but the company's total cars sold last year dropped a skosh - by about one percent. Oldest woman is 117 And finally, after the earthly departure of the oldest woman in the world who was from Japan, the new candidate is a soccer-loving nun from Brazil. Sister Inah Canabarro of Porto Alegre is 117 years old. Another nun, Lucille Randon of France, held the record for the oldest living person in 2023, when she died at 118 years of age. The oldest living person by recent authenticated accounts was Jeanne Louise Calment of France, who died in 1997 at 122 years of age. 1 Peter 3:10-11 says, “He who would love life and see good days, let him refrain his tongue from evil, and his lips from speaking deceit. Let him turn away from evil and do good; let him seek peace and pursue it.” Close And that's The Worldview on this Wednesday, January 8th, in the year of our Lord 2025. Subscribe by Amazon Music or by iTunes or email to our unique Christian newscast at www.TheWorldview.com. Or get the Generations app through Google Play or The App Store. I'm Adam McManus (Adam@TheWorldview.com). Seize the day for Jesus Christ.
Finance Minister Nicola Willis is promising tax changes ahead for charities and the closing of loopholes, and the details of that will be announced in next year's budget. And not before time, you'd have to say. There's about $2 billion, it's estimated, in untaxed profit in the charitable sector, and politicians of varying hues have been eyeing up that revenue potential for some time. I think both Christopher Luxon and Chris Hipkins have said on this show that the charities loophole is something they want to look at. There's also the issue of fairness. A number of charities, operators, businesses —think high profile ones like Sanitarium and Best Start— compete with non-charitable businesses that do not have tax exemptions. The tax working group estimated that about 30% of charities were likely to have some sort of trading activity. So when is a charity, not a charity? Michael Gousmett, from the University of Canterbury, says look at Christ College in Christchurch. He says they're shareholders in a forestry company, and he says if they're sending young men up to the North Island to teach them how to grow straight pine trees, how to mill timber, how to market it and so on, that would be advancing their education under charity law. The fact is they don't. Those boys wouldn't know a pine tree if it fell on them. It was a purely commercial operation, same as the chap down the road growing straight pine trees. The difference is one pays tax, one doesn't, and where's the fairness in that? I think we need to tighten it up. It's not so much a loophole as what Michael Gousmett, describes as “a failure of fiscal policy”. The fact is, there's provision in the Income Tax Act for exemption for charities – he would argue that it's too broad. And you'd have to agree with him, and a number of people have said much the same thing when they have rung in when the topic has come up, and when we've had the leaders of the parties in for a chat. You've got Ngāi Tahu and their seafood businesses. Michael Gousmett said seafood production is not the same thing as advancing the purposes of iwi. I mean, while you can get away with it, go for it. I mean, there are plenty of people who are setting up trusts to avoid paying the maximum amount of tax. They try to minimise their tax return, and that's legal at the moment as the way the law is written, but I think Nicola Willis is casting a gimlet eye over the law and looking to tighten it up. We're all agreed, aren't we, that the sooner that happens, the better? We've been going on like pork chops about Sanitarium and some of the iwi who are operating very, very successful businesses. All well and good to have a charity, set up your scholarships to send kids off to school and grants for housing and health and what have you – great, fabulous. But when the loophole exists, you know it exists, it's been pointed out people can see it, politicians of all shades have said this is a nonsense when we need every last bit of cash. Couldn't we do with Grant Robertson's $600 million down the back of the couch right now? We need every last bit we've got. High time the loophole was closed. I'm just sorry it's going to be next year's budget, and it couldn't happen with a stroke of a pen today. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
On Episode 412 of The Core Report, financial journalist Govindraj Ethiraj talks to Andrew Holland, Mumbai-based CEO at Avendus Capital Public Markets Alternate Strategies as well as Dwarak Narasimhan, Partner at Price Waterhouse & Co LLP, India. SHOW NOTES (00:00) The Take: Whose Data Is It Anyway? (05:00) Markets fall further as cues disappear (05:53) Hyundai Motors IPO is in second gear (07:08) Why India's 11-month market rally is at risk (17:54) Rewriting the Income Tax Act, 1961 Listeners! We await your feedback.... The Core and The Core Report is ad supported and FREE for all readers and listeners. Write in to shiva@thecore.in for sponsorships and brand studio requirements For more of our coverage check out thecore.in Join and Interact anonymously on our whatsapp channel Subscribe to our Newsletter Follow us on: Twitter | Instagram | Facebook | Linkedin | Youtube
Episode 24 – Reconciliation and the Nonprofit Sector: Where Are We Now? To mark Canada's 4th annual National Day for Truth and Reconciliation, in this episode, we're checking in with Indigenous nonprofit leaders from across the country to hear what they have to say about whether any progress has been made in how the nonprofit sector supports, funds and collaborates with Indigenous-led organizations. We'll spotlight some powerful examples of how settler-led and Indigenous-led organizations are creating better working relationships, and hear from Indigenous leaders on what more the sector needs to do to advance reconciliation work. CharityVillage Resources From This Episode· CharityVillage Connects: How Bill S-216 Could Transform the Canadian Nonprofit Sector ForeverUpdate: Bill S-216 has now been passed “in essence” via Bill C-19, the Budget Implementation Act. Bill C-19 included measures that changed the “direction and control” requirements that regulate charities who work with non-charities. According to Senator Ratna Omidvar, sponsor of Bill S-216, “These are big and important changes. They provide a path to get rid of the deeply embedded form of systemic racism that was contained in the Income Tax Act. In its place will be strong, accountable and effective partnerships based on mutual respect.”Bill S-216, otherwise known as the Effective and Accountable Charities Act, sought to amend the Income Tax Act to empower charities by allowing them to more effectively collaborate with a wider range of organizations, including those without charitable status, which the Act refers to as “non-qualified donees”. Proponents of the Bill said the amendments were necessary to get rid of burdensome and expensive redtape and outdated legal bureaucracy. But the key shift proposed by Bill S-216 is much more aspirational: to eliminate the deeply-rooted and historic paternalism that many see embedded in the current rules about how charities can operate.In this episode, we speak with Senator Ratna Omidvar, sponsor of Bill S-216, and with other nonprofit sector experts to explore the pros and cons of this legislation, as well as the deeper implications of what it means for Canadian charitable organizations now that it's become law. · CharityVillage Connects: Indigenous Leaders Discuss Truth and Reconciliation in the Nonprofit SectorPlease note: This podcast discusses topics that may be distressing and awaken memories of past traumatic experiences and abuse. Support is available for anyone affected by their experience at residential schools or by related reports. The National Indian Residential School Crisis Line provides 24-hour crisis support to former Indian Residential School students and their families toll-free at 1-866-925-4419. Immediate emotional support is available by contacting the Hope for Wellness Help Line toll-free at 1-855-242-3310, or by online chat at hopeforwellness.ca. In this episode, upon the first anniversary of the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation, we'll hear unique perspectives from Indigenous leaders from across Canada on what September 30 means to them, the painful legacy it symbolizes, and how, together, we can hopefully move forward. Underlying these discussions is the role that Canadian nonprofits can play in supporting Indigenous-led charitable activities. Considering that The Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada was established over 14 years ago, why has the sector failed to take a more meaningful role in an area where its support could make a real difference? Tune in to this special episode of CharityVillage Connects to hear from Indigenous leaders about how the nonprofit sector can better support, and ally with, Indigenous-led organizations and communities. Additional Resources From This EpisodeWe've gathered the resources from this episode into one helpful list:· Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada: Calls to Action· Canadian charities giving to Indigenous charities and qualified donees - 2019 (Blumbergs)· Allowing the Community to Decide for Itself (Toronto Star, 2023)· Calgary Foundation: Reconciliation· The Declaration of Action (The Circle)· McConnell commits $30M in capital transfers to Indigenous-led foundations (2023) · National Indigenous Economic Strategy Learn more and listen to the full interviews with the guests here.Mary Barroll, president of CharityVillage, is an online business executive and lawyer with a background in media, technology and IP law. A former CBC journalist and independent TV producer, in 2013 she was appointed General Counsel & VP Media Affairs at CharityVillage.com, Canada's largest job portal for charities and not for profits in Canada, and then President in 2021. Mary is also President of sister company, TalentEgg.ca, Canada's No.1, award-winning job board and online career resource that connects top employers with top students and grads.#charity #podcast #nonprofit
The CEO of the embattled Jewish National Fund of Canada, Lance Davis, insists he is now “running a very tight ship” in the wake of the Canada Revenue Agency's recent decision to strip the historic Zionist fundraising organization of its charitable status. Davis, who became JNF Canada's CEO in 2017, maintains that many of the government's longstanding concerns had already been addressed in years past. In an interview with The CJN Daily, Davis blasted the CRA for deliberately choosing the harshest punishment for the venerated Zionist charity, which has sent more than $200 million to beautify Israel and help vulnerable people there. He also argues the CRA rushed to pull the trigger on its status too early, given how JNF's legal dispute is still before the courts. However, documents obtained by The Canadian Jewish News paint a more nuanced picture of why the CRA lost its patience after a decade of "major concerns" about "repeated and serious non-compliance” with Canada's Income Tax Act rules. As reported in The CJN's print feature that digs into the paperwork, the auditors quietly told the Jewish charity several times that it needed to clean up its act, and by 2019, JNF Canada knew Ottawa was moving to revoke. Yet the charity still got five more years to comply. Lance Davis joins The CJN Daily to explain JNF Canada's point of view, then we're joined once again by charity law expert Mark Blumberg who helps explain how the charity got to this point, what could have prevented this scenario and why the government stopped waiting. What we talked about Read why JNF Canada has known for a decade it was at risk of losing its charitable status, in TheCJN.ca Read the CRA's documents for yourselves outlining its case vs. JNF Canada since 2014 JNF Canada said it was 'blindsided", on The CJN Daily back on Aug. 13 Credits Host and writer: Ellin Bessner (@ebessner) info@thecjn.ca Production team: Zachary Kauffman (producer), Michael Fraiman (executive producer) Music: Dov Beck-Levine Support our show Subscribe to The CJN newsletter Donate to The CJN (+ get a charitable tax receipt) Subscribe to The CJN Daily (Not sure how? Click here)
Episode 21 – Bill S-279: A Proposal to Measure the Diversity of Boards of Canadian CharitiesIn 2019, the Senate of Canada published Catalyst for Change: A Roadmap to a Stronger Charitable Sector. Among its recommendations was a suggested amendment to the Income Tax Act to require charities to report on the diversity of their boards in their annual filings. Senator Ratna Omidvar, co-author of the report, has since proposed Bill S-279 to amend the Income Tax Act to do just that. Join us in this episode of CharityVillage Connects, where we talk to Senator Omidvar and other sector experts to learn more about the bill, what it would mean for charities, and the current state of equity and diversity in Canada's nonprofit leadership.Meet Our Guests in Order of Appearance Senator Ratna Omidvar, Independent Senator for Ontario, Senate of CanadaDr. Wendy Cukier, Founder and Academic Director, Diversity InstituteLeslie Woo, CEO, CivicActionAnne-Marie Pham, CEO, Canadian Centre for Diversity and InclusionTerrance Carter, Managing Partner, Carters Professional CorporationKate Behan, Managing Director, Charity Intelligence (comments are personal opinion and do not reflect the views of Charity Intelligence) About your HostMary Barroll, president of CharityVillage, is an online business executive and lawyer with a background in media, technology and IP law. A former CBC journalist and independent TV producer, in 2013 she was appointed General Counsel & VP Media Affairs at CharityVillage.com, Canada's largest job portal for charities and not for profits in Canada, and then President in 2021. Mary is also President of sister company, TalentEgg.ca, Canada's No.1, award-winning job board and online career resource that connects top employers with top students and grads.CharityVillage Resources from this EpisodeCharityVillage eLearning: Decolonizing the BoardroomCharityVillage eLearning: DEI Best Practices for NonprofitsDiversity in Canada's Nonprofit Sector (2021)Additional Resources from this EpisodeWe've gathered the resources from this episode into one helpful list:Catalyst for Change: A Roadmap to a Stronger Charitable Sector (Senate of Canada)Bill S-279: An Act to Amend the Income Tax Act (Data on Registered Charities)Diversity of charity and non-profit boards of directors: Overview of the Canadian non-profit sector (Statistics Canada)Canada Business Corporations Act (Government of Canada)Diversity and Inclusion in Non-profit Leadership in Ontario: Are We There Yet? (Diversity Institute & Civic Action 2023)The 50-30 Challenge BoardShift by CivicActionLearn more and listen to the full interviews with the guests here.
Episode 21 – Bill S-279: A Proposal to Measure the Diversity of Boards of Canadian CharitiesIn 2019, the Senate of Canada published Catalyst for Change: A Roadmap to a Stronger Charitable Sector. Among its recommendations was a suggested amendment to the Income Tax Act to require charities to report on the diversity of their boards in their annual filings. Senator Ratna Omidvar, co-author of the report, has since proposed Bill S-279 to amend the Income Tax Act to do just that. Join us in this episode of CharityVillage Connects, where we talk to Senator Omidvar and other sector experts to learn more about the bill, what it would mean for charities, and the current state of equity and diversity in Canada's nonprofit leadership.Meet Our Guests in Order of Appearance Senator Ratna Omidvar, Independent Senator for Ontario, Senate of CanadaDr. Wendy Cukier, Founder and Academic Director, Diversity InstituteLeslie Woo, CEO, CivicActionAnne-Marie Pham, CEO, Canadian Centre for Diversity and InclusionTerrance Carter, Managing Partner, Carters Professional CorporationKate Behan, Managing Director, Charity Intelligence (comments are personal opinion and do not reflect the views of Charity Intelligence) About your HostMary Barroll, president of CharityVillage, is an online business executive and lawyer with a background in media, technology and IP law. A former CBC journalist and independent TV producer, in 2013 she was appointed General Counsel & VP Media Affairs at CharityVillage.com, Canada's largest job portal for charities and not for profits in Canada, and then President in 2021. Mary is also President of sister company, TalentEgg.ca, Canada's No.1, award-winning job board and online career resource that connects top employers with top students and grads.CharityVillage Resources from this EpisodeCharityVillage eLearning: Decolonizing the BoardroomCharityVillage eLearning: DEI Best Practices for NonprofitsDiversity in Canada's Nonprofit Sector (2021)Additional Resources from this EpisodeWe've gathered the resources from this episode into one helpful list:Catalyst for Change: A Roadmap to a Stronger Charitable Sector (Senate of Canada)Bill S-279: An Act to Amend the Income Tax Act (Data on Registered Charities)Diversity of charity and non-profit boards of directors: Overview of the Canadian non-profit sector (Statistics Canada)Canada Business Corporations Act (Government of Canada)Diversity and Inclusion in Non-profit Leadership in Ontario: Are We There Yet? (Diversity Institute & Civic Action 2023)The 50-30 Challenge BoardShift by CivicActionLearn more and listen to the full interviews with the guests here.
In May 2023, the Inland Revenue Board (IRB) made the decision to withdraw Assunta Hospital's tax exemption status,because the agency believed that the hospital had violated several conditions of its tax exemption status. Dr Veerinderjeet Singh, Senior Advisor on Tax Policy, KPMG explains who and how to qualify for tax exempt status comes under Section 44 (6) of the Income Tax Act 1967 (ITA).Image Credit: shutterstock.com
This week, I am joined by Richard Myers, Tax and Estate Planner at Odlum Brown Financial Services Limited, to discuss the proposed changes to the Income Tax Act and the capital gains inclusion rate. We dive into the details: how will this change affect individuals, corporations and trusts?--Follow The Financial Long Game:Website - http://odlumbrown.com/FinancialLongGameApple Podcasts - https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/the-financial-long-game/id1723891225Spotify - https://open.spotify.com/show/1rHyrg4b5Eq5EGJ8EiHksNAmazon Music - https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/f1fa0b03-e006-42b3-914a-e91e50644f43/the-financial-long-gameFollow Shelly Appleton-Benko:Website - https://www.odlumbrown.com/advisors/advisor-detail/shelly-appleton-benkoLinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/shellyappletonbenko/?originalSubdomain=caFollow Odlum Brown:Website - https://www.odlumbrown.com/X - https://twitter.com/Odlum_BrownLinkedIn - https://ca.linkedin.com/company/odlum-brown-limitedInstagram - https://www.instagram.com/odlumbrown/
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon said the Government is currently looking into tax legislation for charitable entities, hinting that he wants charities who run like profitable businesses to pay tax. Charity Researcher Dr Michael Gousmett tells Heather du Plessis-Allan that New Zealand has been a little slow on updating its legislation. Legislation introduced in 1891 never expected commercial operations of today's scale. Dr Gousmett says there is a provision in the Income Tax Act that could solve this problem without needing to change any legislation at all, but that it would be very difficult to ascertain how much tax companies would pay. LISTEN ABOVE See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Physician Empowerment Masterclass Faculty Member and tax lawyer Jason Pisesky returns to the show to talk with Dr. Wing Lim about capital gains in real estate investments. Jason and Wing explore everything to do with real estate from tax to property depreciation and personal versus corporate real estate purchases.Jason addresses how the Income Tax Act applies to real estate and the nuances involved with the PRE or Personal Residence Exemption. He explains some of the insights that apply to buying and flipping houses, up markets and down markets, and depreciable capital property. Personal versus corporate purchases, income versus capital gain, and active versus passive axis are discussed in broad terms, enough to give a clearer understanding of what Jason will be addressing in greater detail in future episodes and at the Physician Empowerment Live Conference in Toronto in May. The knowledge Jason shares is foundational and directly applicable to anyone with an investment mindset.–About Jason Pisesky:Jason is a tax lawyer with an international accounting firm, KPMG. His practice background is extensive and includes personal and corporate tax planning as well as litigation and dispute resolution. Whether you are scaling up your practice or winding it down, proper coordination between a tax lawyer and your accountant can ensure you're doing it right.Jason is one of Physician Empowerment's professional Masterclass Faculty members.__ Interested in going further in your financial journey? Join our national conference and meet the PhE team live in Toronto this May 25 and 26th: https://www.physempowerment.ca/live __Physician Empowerment: Register for the Physician Empowerment Live Conference in Toronto on May 25 - 26, 2024Join the Physician Empowerment Masterclass now
Was 1913 the year that sealed America's fate, transforming it forever? In this must-watch, insightful episode of "Create Your Own Life," I, Jeremy Ryan Slate, take you on a deep dive into the pivotal events of 1913 that arguably stripped America of its sovereignty. With my background in history and years of dedicated research, I bring a unique perspective to these critical moments in time. We'll explore the Income Tax Act, the 17th Amendment, and the Federal Reserve Act—three monumental changes that continue to shape our nation's problems and sovereignty issues. This episode is not just a historical analysis; it's a call to action, offering solutions on how we can address these century-old decisions. Join me in this controversial, thought-provoking journey as we dissect how 1913 might have been the year America ceased to be a republic. Whether you're a history aficionado, a political enthusiast, or someone deeply concerned about America's future, this episode promises a fresh, analytical perspective on issues often glossed over. Your engagement is crucial. Comment your thoughts, like if you find the content enlightening, and subscribe to be part of a community that dares to challenge mainstream perspectives. Share this video to ignite conversations about America's past, present, and future sovereignty. Support our mission to enlighten and inspire by checking out our sponsors—products and services we trust and recommend. Dive deeper into the topics we discussed by visiting our website, and follow us on social media to join the conversation on America's fate and how we can reclaim our republic. Your voice matters in shaping a future informed by our past. Let's create change together.
Was 1913 the year that sealed America's fate, transforming it forever? In this must-watch, insightful episode of "Create Your Own Life," I, Jeremy Ryan Slate, take you on a deep dive into the pivotal events of 1913 that arguably stripped America of its sovereignty. With my background in history and years of dedicated research, I bring a unique perspective to these critical moments in time. We'll explore the Income Tax Act, the 17th Amendment, and the Federal Reserve Act—three monumental changes that continue to shape our nation's problems and sovereignty issues. This episode is not just a historical analysis; it's a call to action, offering solutions on how we can address these century-old decisions. Join me in this controversial, thought-provoking journey as we dissect how 1913 might have been the year America ceased to be a republic. Whether you're a history aficionado, a political enthusiast, or someone deeply concerned about America's future, this episode promises a fresh, analytical perspective on issues often glossed over. Your engagement is crucial. Comment your thoughts, like if you find the content enlightening, and subscribe to be part of a community that dares to challenge mainstream perspectives. Share this video to ignite conversations about America's past, present, and future sovereignty. Support our mission to enlighten and inspire by checking out our sponsors—products and services we trust and recommend. Dive deeper into the topics we discussed by visiting our website, and follow us on social media to join the conversation on America's fate and how we can reclaim our republic. Your voice matters in shaping a future informed by our past. Let's create change together.
Dr. Wing Lim hosts Physician Empowerment Masterclass Faculty Member and Certified Financial Planner Nick Giovannetti on the show today. Wing and Nick talk about Individual Pension Plans, or IPPs, breaking down how they work, who qualifies, and what sorts of benefits they provide for physicians. Nick has a wealth of knowledge about CPPs, RRSPs, and IPPs that he shares in this episode.Nick Giovannetti explains that IPPs are not a new financial tool, they've been around for over thirty years in Canada. But RRSPs have been around longer and are less complicated than IPPs to administer. There are more complex forms and filings to fill out for the CRA where IPPs are concerned and Nick says the lack of awareness about IPPs and the fear associated with the complexity prevents some accountants and planners from informing their clients about the IPP benefits. So Wing and Nick dive into exactly what an IPP is and how you can best benefit from it. They cover everything from contribution limits and family member beneficiaries to buyback and defined contribution versus defined benefit pension plans. This episode gives an overview of why Individual Pension Plans are worth exploring.–About Nick Giovannetti:Nick is a Certified Financial Planner® with a fully Integrated Wealth Planning Team. His approach to financial planning centers around a deep understanding of clients' goals and objectives, fostering long-term relationships built on trust and transparency.Nick is one of Physician Empowerment's professional Masterclass Faculty members.__Resources mentioned in this episode: “Kentucky Fried Pensions” by Christopher B Tobe and Kenneth C Tobe--Physician Empowerment: Physician Empowerment MasterclassLive Conference 2024--TranscriptDr. Kevin Mailo: [00:00:01] Hi, I'm Doctor Kevin Mailo, one of the co-hosts of the Physician Empowerment podcast. At Physician Empowerment we're dedicated to improving the lives of Canadian physicians personally, professionally, and financially. If you're loving what you're listening to, let us know! We always want to hear your feedback. Connect with us. If you want to go further, we've got outstanding programing both in person and online so look us up. But regardless, we hope you really enjoy this episode. Dr. Kevin Mailo: [00:00:35] Hi everyone, so glad to have you out tonight for another webinar featuring the topic of IPPs, Individualized Pension Plans, which were in fact established by the federal government back in the 90s. They were not very well known until last 5 or 10 years when they've started to take off. But there are a lot of ins and outs to using these properly, and they have certain advantages over RRSPs that incorporated professionals really need to be taking a close look at. So to go on this deep dive, well, I shouldn't say it's that deep a dive, the deep dive is going to come with the masterclass. So if anybody's interested in that, do reach out to me and we'd be happy to talk further about having you join the masterclass, because this topic is dense. So Wing is going to take us through it tonight, and he's going to do it with one of our masterclass faculty, Nick Giovannetti. And Nick is an Integrated Wealth Planning Specialist, holds a lot of designations, and he and our other masterclass faculty member, Simon Wong, have done a ton of outstanding teaching on topics like this. Because you want to know what it is you're you're using when it comes to wealth creation and advanced tax planning. That's where these topics are so, so powerful to cover, like we're going to do. So again, if you have questions, you're interested, reach out to us. But let me take it from there, Wing, and hand it off to you. If you want to go ahead and introduce Nick to everybody. Dr. Wing Lim: [00:02:08] Sure. So good to see everybody and hear everybody's voices later. And yeah, this is very exciting episode in December this year. And we thought we'll wrap up the year by something that is really important. And that's about the RRSP, IPP, and the pension world. And like we said in the intro on social media, we're going to unpack this mystery box. So our guest today for our fireside chat is Nick. And Nick has a lot of designations. And he's actually also a multi-talented Renaissance man, I guess, he was previously an international recording artist. You might want to explore that on the different dimension of him. And we just talked about one of his designation is about cash flow personalities. Right? And we'll probably do an episode on that, definitely will be a lot of fun. But today we're going to talk about this project, sorry, this platform. There's RRSP that everybody probably heard about and some people do RRSP, some people don't believe in RRSP. Right. But then there's IPP pension world. So Nick, maybe you should walk us through, when we talk about this, you said you got to bring in CPP too, so may as well bring in CPP, RRSP, IPP. So walk us through a little bit of a history lesson and how it's pertaining to incorporated professionals. Nick Giovannetti: [00:03:33] For sure, yeah, thanks for having me, everyone. Like Kevin had mentioned, you know, the Individual Pension Plan, it's not a new financial tool. It's actually been around for over 30 years here in Canada. And as we know, the RRSP or the Registered Retirement Savings Plan has has been around even longer than that. It's been around since the 50s, and it was actually something introduced by the Canadian Medical Association because physicians even back then, yeah, physicians even back then were saying-- Dr. Wing Lim: [00:04:02] -- one for us-- Nick Giovannetti: [00:04:04] -- hey, we need a retirement vehicle. We need something tax sheltered. They'd done a lot of research back then, and to them it made sense to say, hey, where can I put money now, get some tax relief today, invest and grow that pot of money in a tax sheltered environment? And then I can strategically, you know, pull it out in the future and give myself predictable and secure income, something that I can count on in the future. So that's really what happened in the early 90s, was that small/medium business owners, they wanted pension plans. You know, a lot of people look at especially medical professionals around the hospital, how many of your coworkers and colleagues in the hospital have pension plans? And that's something that I think a lot of physicians look at and say, what if I could have that? What if I could even just contact the Healthcare of Ontario or OMERS or Teachers Pension and say, hey, can I just contribute to this? Can I become a plan member? And then I can also have a defined benefit pension in the future. Nick Giovannetti: [00:05:07] So physicians are not alone. Business owners have been wanting that, self-employed people have been wanting that. So in the early 90s, the first ever one of one, so one person to one company pension plan was allowed by the Income Tax Act. And it's called an Individual Pension Plan. So you could be one business owner, have one pension plan, and you're the only plan member, but you can take advantage of all of the rules that all the other pension plans in Canada follow. So everything that everyone is very fond of, federal government workers, teachers, firefighters, police, you can benefit from those same retirement savings rules. So from contribution limits to tax deductions to predictable guaranteed income in the future, you can create your own. And it's been around a long time. So if you're a physician that is incorporated, you should really look at this as part of your overall planning. Dr. Wing Lim: [00:06:05] So how does it compare to RRSP that everybody knows? Nick Giovannetti: [00:06:09] So there's a few key takeaways or few key differences and one would be that the RRSP happens on a personal level, and the Individual Pension Plan happens on a corporate level. So what I mean by that is if you want to participate in an RRSP, you're going to have to pull money out of your corporation, pay some tax, and then you're going to have to then contribute to an RRSP with your after tax personal income, and then hopefully get a tax refund on the personal side. Now the RRSP is also limited to a certain amount of contribution room, so I'll touch on that in a second. The Individual Pension Plan side, it works a little bit differently. So you can actually earn money to your corporation and if you have a pension plan, the corporation can right away save that money into a pension before any tax has ever happened on those dollars. Okay, so that's one of the big key advantages. So then the second one I touched on was contribution room. So Registered Retirement Savings Plans are capped to 18% of your salary that you pay yourself or bonus, so it's got to be salary or bonus, on the personal level, defined benefit pension plans can get as high as 30% of salary, which is a big difference. We get into, you know, a difference of 30 grand a year to 50 grand a year when it comes to maximum savings room. And on the pension side, because the government really treats pension plans favorably, you have a lot of additional ways you can put money in a pension plan. So I'll touch on a few of those. Nick Giovannetti: [00:07:46] First one is, the government cares about what the rate of return in an Individual Pension Plan is, and what they want to see is a minimum 7.5% rate of return and a maximum ceiling of it's about 9.375. They want to see pension plans grow in that window, averaging every three years. And if your pension is not growing at that rate, you're actually allowed to put in more money. When we look at the RRSP, nobody cares if your RRSP grows at 7.5%. You care, but the Government of Canada is not going to let you put more money in if your investments are not performing well enough. So you got a fail safe there. And you can also do strategies like dry powder hedging, where you purposely underperform your investments so that you can put in more money. So there's some unique strategies there. I would say another one is, defined benefit pension plans your income is based on a formula. So you know, very predictably, what are you going to have as an income stream in retirement, whereas your RRSP, it's totally up to you how you want to pull the money out. Some people pull out a lot quickly, some people don't pull out enough, some people just do the minimum that the government wants to see you pull out. So there's a lot of room for error on the RRSP side, where the Individual Pension Plan can be more predictable and easier to plan around because it's been created for you by a formula. Now there's a few different, Wing, that we could dive into. But I'll punt it back to you and we'll see where we go. Dr. Wing Lim: [00:09:28] So I guess it's a good time to talk about these formulas. Who writes these formulas? Who dictates these formulas? Nick Giovannetti: [00:09:36] It's a great question. So it's a legal framework that goes back to when the first Income Tax Act was created. Your pension plan could be structured in a way so that you're going to have, you know, a flat benefit. So it might be I paid myself this much salary, I worked for my company this many years, I'm this certain age, so I get a flat benefit based on a formula of a couple factors like that. There's also another factor which could be career average earnings. So it doesn't matter if you paid yourself lower salary in the beginning and then you upped it later on, you know your pension could be calculated on an average. You could also do it so that it's a final or best average earnings. Or a percentage of contributions. So these formulas, when you set up and register your Individual Pension Plan, the CRA actually has a registration form. And on the form you're going to check off these boxes of how do you want that formula to be identified. And it's in the Income Tax Act as to how that calculation will be made. Dr. Wing Lim: [00:10:41] Right. So this is way more complicated than RRSP. Right? So maybe we could just maybe help, maybe I will use a layman's way to bring everybody on the same page. So basically if you work for a big firm you have a nice pension plan. Right? And the employer and the employee are different people. But now with this IPP platform, they allow professionals or business owners to actually be the same person, that the employer/employee is the same entity, well same person, right, different entities. But to ensure that the benefactor of the pension plan gets so much dollar sometimes guaranteed and so that's why they have these elaborate formula. Right? But then who is funding it, well in our case it's the PC. So if you come to our masterclass, the whole series is called Fat PC Skinny, right? So you want to have a fat PC but you want a skinny me, but not a starving me, right? So you definitely want the money to come out, especially in the golden years, right? That you've done your hard work. And so you want the pension to come. And now is a way to efficiently fund this piggy bank called IPP. Right? And so that's why there's a lot more calculation than RRSP. So let's look at, yeah there's some difference. What about some similarity? At age, what, 71 both plans have to kind of be put an end to it. Can you elaborate on that, Nick? Nick Giovannetti: [00:12:11] For sure, yeah. So the similarity there is that the government of Canada, so the Income Tax Act wants you to have to start pulling money out of either an RRSP or your pension plan by age 71. You can, in an RRSP, decide to pull it out earlier, and you can do so with a pension plan as well. Some pensioners I've seen start an IPP and actually turn on their pension income as early as their mid 40s. So you have a lot of flexibility there as to when you want to start drawing the money out of these accounts. But traditional retirement age in Canada is 65, and you can delay that to 71 if you want to push it off as far as possible. Dr. Wing Lim: [00:12:55] So with IPP, you still have to do the like the RIFF and all that, right? Like there's to pull the money out there's no difference whether you have RRSP, IPP. Is there a difference the way that you pull the money out past 71? Nick Giovannetti: [00:13:07] Yeah, that's a great question. So with an RRSP it gets converted to, you mentioned it, it's called a RIFF. It turns into a Registered Retirement Income Fund. And the government will have a calculation as to how much you have to pull out each year as you age. And you're going to be doing that through wherever it is, your money managers, your trading, what have you. You have to pull out that minimum, but you could ultimately pull out whatever you want. With an Individual Pension Plan, you actually have three different options to how you want to pull the money out. So the first option is whoever's managing your Individual Pension Plan, you're going to just instruct them and sign the form that I'm retiring from my corporation and they will ask you, how do you want to pull out the money? Do you want monthly installments based on your defined benefit formula, or do you want a one year, once a year, lump sum, boom here's my payment? So that's the first way you could. So the money manager continues managing your money. Same with a RIFF and you're just getting your distributions. Okay? The second way, if you don't want any market risk, you can actually take your defined benefit pension that you save for yourself and you could go to a life insurance company and you could actually buy something called a copycat annuity. Nick Giovannetti: [00:14:24] So these are available even now for teachers, firefighters, police officers, doesn't matter. If you have a defined benefit pension, you can go to an insurance company and buy something called a copycat annuity. Now the word copycat means whatever your income you are guaranteed to have, so the distribution let's just say it was 200 grand a year of pension income, the annuity will guarantee you that paycheck every year for a certain chunk of whatever your investments were in that defined benefit plan. And then depending on interest rates and annuity rates, you might actually have a little extra so you'll get paid a bit of cash and you'll have this guaranteed income the rest of your life. Now, the third way is you could shut your Individual Pension Plan down entirely and go right back to RRSPs. So we call that a wind up. So you could shut it all down back to RRSPs or into a RIFF, and you're going to have a certain amount of your pension that's allowed to transfer. So it's a tax free transfer back to the old way. But generally speaking, you will have a chunk of money that is extra that can't transfer back to an RRSP. So you'd have to take that as an income the year you decided to do a wind up. But you actually have three different ways that you could collect. Dr. Wing Lim: [00:15:47] Right. Okay. So you got more choices, more diversity, right? More versatility. That's great. Let's talk about defined benefit versus defined contribution: DB versus DC. Because as physicians we haven't heard a lot about it, we just know that most people nowadays have a defined contribution plan meaning that the company would match you. Right.? Some of you may, listeners, may be working for a big hospital. You might be in a pension plan already. So defined contribution meaning that they define how much you contribute. They did not define how much you get, which is the benefit. And way back, there's every plan is a DB plan and now who's left with these juicy DB plans indexed with inflation? Well, our Premier, our Prime Minister, a lot of politicians do, but most corporate owners they only define a contribution not define benefit. So let's talk about DB and DC in the IPP world. Nick Giovannetti: [00:16:46] For sure, yeah. So a defined contribution pension, I think you already touched on it, Wing, the only thing defined is the amount you can contribute. And it's actually the same contribution amount to that of an RRSP which is 18% of your salary up to the maximum allowable each year. So you can put in 18% of your salary. And then when you retire, it generally just turns into a RIFF. So same as RRSPs, right? So you're going to have the choice of taking out the minimum that RIFF allows or as much as you want, but whatever you pull out of that is going to be taxable income when you pull it out. So there's nothing really more predictable about a defined contribution pension than that of an RRSP. It's just that defined contribution pensions you can contribute through your corporation, whereas an RRSP you contribute personally. Now defined benefit pension, what's defined is your benefit, the predictable guaranteed income that you're going to receive for the rest of your life. And Wing touched on it, it could be indexed to inflation, meaning that if the cost of living goes up 3%, then your pension distributions next year will go up 3%, right? That just happened with Canada Pension Plan. Everybody got a 6.5% bump to their income because inflation changed in Canada. It was a big bump to the cost of living. So everybody collecting those defined benefit Canada pension plan cheques got a nice bump. So defined benefits are formula based on what you're going to receive in the future. Defined contributions are really a corporate version of an RRSP. Dr. Wing Lim: [00:18:30] I guess some people have a fear that if they're stuck in a DB thing, that they, if they don't have a good year, they can't contribute. Right? But you say that it's just like the RRSP, right? And if there's a year, let's say you fallen sick or you had a bad year, you took a sabbatical, and you cannot contribute that much into the IPP, would it collapse? Nick Giovannetti: [00:18:52] That's a really great question. So it was, I believe it was the end of 2020 where if you're a connected person to your IPP, meaning I own 10% or more of the shares of the company that is sponsoring the IPP, so in most cases for a physician, it'll be your MPC sponsoring the company, you own all the shares, or hopefully you own at least more than 10%. You're what's called a connected person. You don't actually have to contribute to your IPP at all because you're a connected person to that pension. You own majority share of the company sponsoring it, or at least 10% of it. Your family members are also connected. So if you added a spouse or children, you don't have to contribute for them either. So a lot of the fear, Wing, of having to contribute to an IPP to top it up or boost it up, if you go on sabbatical you're behind, maybe you don't have the cash flow that year, a lot of those fears are now gone. If you were to have an IPP set up and you didn't own the company and somebody set that up for you, they would be liable to fund it the same way that if you worked for the hospital, teacher, firefighter, whatever, they have to top it up, right, General Motors, big union companies, they have to top up their pensions. So you have some flexibility as the owner. Dr. Wing Lim: [00:20:08] Right. And for the years that you didn't contribute full amount, then there is buyback or catch up. Right? There's this feature? Nick Giovannetti: [00:20:16] There is, yeah. So even if you've been incorporated let's say for 15 years and you've never had an IPP and you decide to open an IPP right now, they can do a calculation and they look at pension adjustments, your RRSP room, your your current RRSP balance, how much you paid yourself in the past and they can go back in time and say, okay, Doctor Lim, you have a catch up of 300,000 just for setting up a pension and never paying yourself salary again, but you just have, you still currently have 300 grand of room. And then you could pay yourself a salary that year, have a percentage of salary and carry forward. So you do have the ability to buy back, but it will be offset if you took care of some, if you were contributing to RRSPs. because they're going to do a pension adjustment to offset what did you put in RRSPs? What were your unused room? How well did the RRSP perform? And then that will work into the calculation of the buyback. Dr. Wing Lim: [00:21:17] So if you have had an RRSP and you're contemplating starting IPP, so what happens to the RRSP once you start the IPP? Nick Giovannetti: [00:21:25] So if you want to participate in the buyback, then they're going to use your RRSP balance as part of the calculation. And what will happen is, high level example, when you have 500 grand to buy back but based on the pension adjustment calculation, you have to take 250 grand from your RRSP, and it's called a qualifying transfer, it's tax free, you have to move 250 grand from your RRSP over to your pension, and then it would allow you 250 grand room to contribute. The rest of your RRSP, whatever's over and above that minimum transfer, you could leave it external, leave it as an RRSP, or you could bring it into your pension under a secondary account known as an additional voluntary contribution account. Dr. Wing Lim: [00:22:15] Right. So there's a lot of flexibility. And then there are certain age related benefits, right? With the room, contribution room versus RRSP. So when does the gap start to widen big enough to be meaningful? Nick Giovannetti: [00:22:30] Yeah. So, defined benefit pension plans, the formula of the matching of the salary is about 12.5% of your salary when you're 18 years old for a defined benefit plan. And RRSPs are 18%, and defined contribution plans are 18%. But by the time you're 38, the defined benefit matching curve has caught up to the 18% already. It's a little over 18% by the time you're 38. And then from the age of 38 all the way to 71, it gets as high as almost 30% of salary. So really, you'll see a lot of people heavily look at Individual Pension Plans if they're going to do the defined benefit schedule. A lot of people will heavily look at it when they reach 40. Dr. Wing Lim: [00:23:18] Right? So 40 is kind of the turning point. Nick Giovannetti: [00:23:21] The turning point for most, unless they have one of the combination registrations, so their pension has both types. You can have it where you have both types, a defined contribution and defined benefit. So if you registered it that way, a lot of those professionals will just start whenever they start, because you don't lose contribution room and you can just convert it over whenever it makes sense. Dr. Wing Lim: [00:23:43] Right. So you talk about a lot of these calculations that have to be done right. And if it is not, I heard that there's very stiff penalty from CRA. Right? And so who does all this, all these calculations? Nick Giovannetti: [00:23:59] Yeah. So when you have a pension plan it's really important to have a good team. So as part of that team you need actuaries. There's got to be an actuary or a team of actuaries that's calculating all the math behind these complex pension calculations. And there's a lot of them out there, lots of different companies doing that. So it's important that's kind of step one. You could go a step further and make sure on that team you have pension lawyers. And it's good to have pension lawyers because they can also help with a lot more of the compliance factor of your pension plan, because you will be registering it with CRA as Doctor Wing Lim pension plan, registered pension plan. So it's important to have a team that is familiar with pensions, they're able to help you manage the non-investment related factors, and then you'll have an investment team that takes care of the money. And hopefully you have an accountant and a planner that help you with the distribution and the planning side. Dr. Wing Lim: [00:24:56] So the beneficiary of these plans, so it could be me, the doctor, the spouse. What about kids? Nick Giovannetti: [00:25:02] Yeah. So you you can, you can absolutely name your children as beneficiaries, and you can even add children to an Individual Pension Plan if they work at all or have any level of employment with your corporation. Dr. Wing Lim: [00:25:17] So if they're employed, not a dividend, not T5, but they have to be T4 as well, right? Nick Giovannetti: [00:25:23] That's right, yeah. Dr. Wing Lim: [00:25:24] Right. Then they could be part of the IPP itself. But for the beneficiary let's say after you turn 71, right, you want to take money out. So kids probably well grown up by then, so they don't, do they have to be employed by to get the benefit, they don't have to be, right? Nick Giovannetti: [00:25:40] So if they, if you wanted to make them a beneficiary so if you passed away where would all these assets go, no, they don't have to work for your company to be a beneficiary. But if they wanted to be a plan member because you're looking for some different intergenerational wealth benefits, then at some point they would have to have an employee relationship with your company. I've seen the employment income as low as $3,500. I've seen some people hire their kids to do admin and social media work. Maybe they pay them 10, 15 grand for that. Whatever you do, they just have to be paid at least minimum wage for whatever job it is that they're doing. And they could be added with just one year of service. Dr. Wing Lim: [00:26:23] One year of service. And this applies not just to kids, but to the spouse as well. Right? Nick Giovannetti: [00:26:28] 100%. Yeah. So a lot of professionals and business owners will find work for their spouse to do, and then they can add their spouse to their pension plan, and the company can contribute to that spouse's pension plan. Right? Because most likely a pension plan contribution room will be quite a bit higher than that of an RRSP. Dr. Wing Lim: [00:26:49] Right. Yeah. And so this, we talked about TOSI in other episodes. Right? Test on, Tax On Split Income. So it's pretty harsh, but IPP is just one really smart, astute and legal way that you can do the income splitting, especially in the latter days, when you're drawing money out. Nick Giovannetti: [00:27:06] Exactly. Yeah. It's a very black and white way to get money into your spouse's hands by paying them legitimate T4 income, so salary or bonus, and saving for their retirement. And in the future you mentioned pension plans you can do income splitting on the income that comes out of it. So these are very CRA-approved registered pension plans that there's a lot of peace of mind knowing that that part of your strategy is ironclad. Dr. Wing Lim: [00:27:37] Right. And so who are not eligible for IPPs? Nick Giovannetti: [00:27:41] So those that wouldn't be eligible are those that are paying themselves out of their corporation dividends or capital gains. So if you're doing pipelining, capital gains stripping, and that's your only source of income out of the company, or non-eligible dividend, then those would not qualify for pension contributions. Dr. Wing Lim: [00:28:02] So if you have done T5 all along, right, and then you have never given yourself T4, then there is no room. Is that true? Nick Giovannetti: [00:28:10] So that means you won't have any buyback room. That's correct. Now you could change today. So you could say, because pensions are based on current year, RRSP contributions are based on previous year income, so you could decide in the year I'm going to pay myself salary this year and open a pension that year and participate in the pension that year. Dr. Wing Lim: [00:28:31] What about if you're not incorporated? If you don't have a PC, you're sole proprietor. Can you do IPP? Nick Giovannetti: [00:28:37] No. So you do need to have a corporation. Now another corporation could do an IPP for you. So if you worked for another clinic and they were employing you, they could register one for you, but you would now be a non-connected person. So they would have to fund that pension plan. And a lot of employers wouldn't do that because of the risk. Dr. Wing Lim: [00:28:58] Right. Yeah. I want to point this out because there are always exceptions to the rule. Right? And so that's what because some of our listeners, they, the first five years of practice, they haven't even incorporated yet, or they say the accountants told them there's really no reason if you spend it all, then you don't need a PC. And I have a colleague, 30 years after they started the practice, the accountant still says no need for PCs, and all these benefits, these powerful strategies, don't apply to them. Right? Or my personal story, my accountant way back said, no, don't believe in T4, only give yourself T5. So the first 20 years of my practice I only got T5, zero T4. So by the time I knew about IPP, my buyback is really small amount, right? And I wish I knew, right, I wish I knew earlier. And so that's why for people who are in the early or mid part of your career, this is something to plan. Nick Giovannetti: [00:29:52] Yeah. And I've heard all kinds of stories. And you bring up a good point because your accountant didn't only talk you out of being able to participate in your own IPP, but your accountant also doing what they did for you there, they talked you out of participating in Canada Pension Plan, because when you make the decision not to pay T4 income to open an IPP or an RRSP, you're also shutting yourself down from getting any Canada Pension Plan. Dr. Wing Lim: [00:30:20] Now this is really interesting because a lot of accounting accountants of my vintage, right, 30 years ago, but even newer ones I'm shocked to hear as they now you invest better than CPP. Do you want to make a comment on CPP? Nick Giovannetti: [00:30:36] Yeah, I mean, I've heard all kinds of very competent investors think that they can outperform Canada Pension Plan. Um, Canada Pension Plan is probably one of the best run pension plans in the entire world. And in order for you to compete with that, we could dive into that maybe in the masterclass or in another session, but if we wanted to calculate what you would have to earn, consistently guaranteed every year from now all the way till you pass away, to be able to recreate what Canada Pension Plan created for 6 to 7 grand a year worth of savings, it would be a very, very difficult thing for anybody to do, even an astute investor. Dr. Wing Lim: [00:31:19] Right. So CPP is a good thing. Right? And so when you offer RRSP and IPP, you also offer CPP right? Nick Giovannetti: [00:31:26] You do by default, you get two pensions. Dr. Wing Lim: [00:31:28] Yeah. Now, so then let's go back further about this accountant thing. And I'm not trying to belittle or badmouth any accountants. But a lot of accountants and advisors are so against IPP or so ignorant about IPP. Why is that? Nick Giovannetti: [00:31:46] That's such a great question. And from what I've come across, a lot of it is lack of awareness and fear. Or they're looking for something easy because it's easier for an accountant to pay a dividend. Right? There's a little more work involved if you pay T4 and you got to remit tax at source, they got to make sure they account for Canada Pension Plan, they got to do your pension adjustments, like there's reasons why it simplifies their life. And I've actually heard an accountant one time say to a physician, I was on this joint call, I don't mind paying you salary but I'm going to have to download all that work to you, Mr. and Mrs. Physician. It was the most unbelievable comment I'd ever heard. And sure enough, they asked me after the call, can you help introduce me to an accountant that would do this work for me? So it's not that big of a deal. A lot of it is very simplified. They do it for a lot of other business owners, because a lot of other business owners do have IPPs, so they have to do the salary. Dr. Wing Lim: [00:32:48] I'm just saying that this is a few years ago, 2020 before Covid, right? I read some stats that of all the eligible people in Canada for IPP, which is like millions, only 2% were implemented, right? The market penetration is like 2%. That's abhorring right? Nick Giovannetti: [00:33:08] Yeah. And again, a lot of that is it's lack of awareness and fear. So I've seen, I've seen what kind of benefit an accountant that is forward thinking and stays on the top of their game with pension plans, how well their clients have done and they stand out from the rest. And that's probably some of the 2%, because why would a business owner know to ask for an Individual Pension Plan if it didn't come from their accountant or their planner? And a lot of financial planners know very little to nothing about Individual Pension Plans. And where I say the fear comes from is because there is filings with CRA that need to be done. It's either done by your administration team or your planner or your accountant. And if they screw up, I've seen people wait years to get their pensions off the ground, and there's all this compliance problems and they're just not doing it properly. So again, if you're working with a team that's familiar, this stuff is like cakewalk, right? They do these things in their sleep and you get a lot of benefit. Why so many are afraid is because it is complex. It's more advanced planning. And just not everybody's prepared for that. Dr. Wing Lim: [00:34:17] So don't just find somebody that would just wing it, just by my name. This is not a place for somebody to wing it. This is complicated stuff. It has to be done properly. Nick Giovannetti: [00:34:28] Yeah. I've seen the big banks steer away from things that are complicated because they can't scale. So why do they push RRSPs even? It's because it's easy. You just sit with them, you meet for five minutes, you sign a form, boom. You got an RRSP, right? That's scalable. That's easy for them to administer. So even the big banks have participated in why only 2% of the eligible population are doing it because a lot of people deal with the bank. Dr. Wing Lim: [00:34:59] Exactly. Now. So this is awesome, Nick. Final question topic is messy one. Pension world. So if we can now do our own pension plan, what about different badging together like MEPs of the world? Even our medical associations are tapping into this thing. Can you just give us a quick overview of what that is about? It's a very mysterious world. Nick Giovannetti: [00:35:23] Yeah. I mean, there's a lot of different pension types out there. There's Individual Pension Plans, there's Multi-Employer Pension Plans, there's Joint Employer Sponsored Pension Plans, there's Specified Multi-Employer Pension Plans. So pension plans are a complex world. They're actually an entirely different section of the Income Tax Act than that of the RRSP. It's got its own section because there's so much complexity of how you can put these together. And I'm sure you'll see if you dig into this world, there's so many different ones out there. And the biggest thing that I find is that a lot of pension plans have been rolled out, and they may claim to be something that sounds great and polished, but until you know the underlying way it was registered and all those little details of how much do I contribute, does my company sponsor it or do you sponsor it? Who has control? What if I don't like how you're managing it? Can I take it and go somewhere else? Can I add my kids to this plan? So there's so many things there. What about indexing, right? What happens if there's a market correction? So there's so many things out there that you do need to make sure you're aware of. And one thing I find that most business owners and professionals want is flexibility and control. And the IPP generally checks off both those boxes. Dr. Wing Lim: [00:36:52] Right. Because there are talks, right, because we're busy professionals just nose down, bum up, working to our bones. And so we don't have time to think about, oh, if some big brothers sisters come and create this plan, even our own association or a fragment of our administration, right, we thought then they must do a better job just because there's bigger group of people, more asset under management that the sexy term AUM. But like you say it may not be managed well. Right? So I listen to podcasts and there is a book called The Kentucky Fried Pension. And this is a guy who is a whistleblower, which is actually a paid job in the US, and he was investigating the Kentucky State Pension and how screwed up, this is like you say, the firefighters, nurses, policemen, that how not just mismanaged, but there is just hankie panky mismanaged, like funds got stolen, siphoned to Wall Street, some favorite pals, you know, who worked there and get whatever kickback. It's just, bigger doesn't mean better. Nick Giovannetti: [00:37:59] That's so true. And you know what I, the most interesting thing I've heard recently, Wing, was there's a pension plan out there that is saying that they're going to give you a defined benefit income stream. So predictable guaranteed income stream. But when you look under the hood and the mechanics of how it's built, it's built like a defined contribution pension. Dr. Wing Lim: [00:38:22] Mhm. Nick Giovannetti: [00:38:23] Well defined contribution pension plans don't have any of the defined benefit fail safes. If the pension underperforms you can't put more money in. Dr. Wing Lim: [00:38:34] Mhm. Nick Giovannetti: [00:38:35] Right? Based on my age I can't put more money in. If there's massive market problems, can't put more money in. If I retire early, right? All these fail safes that define benefit pensions have to give people security in retirement, because anything could happen. Retirement could be 30, 40 years. Right? Look at Sears. Those pension plans were mismanaged and people lost their pension. So it matters. What are the fail safes? And if you claim a defined benefit income for the rest of someone's life, but you don't have any of the fail safes, and your contribution schedule is that of a lesser contribution room, how could you promise that? Dr. Wing Lim: [00:39:19] Right. I just want to address one more misconception, and then we'll move on to the next one, which is Q&A, and that is, there's different brands of the IPP. And you may have heard even in the physician world. And they package them, call themselves something else, but in front of CRA, there's only one thing. It's called IPP, right? You can say mine is curry chicken, mine is kung pao chicken, mine is coconut Thai chicken, curry chicken, but at the end of the day, there's only chicken. CRA only recognizes chicken, right? Not the fancy brand. And sometimes they mislead people. I don't know if it's consciously or subconsciously but that's what we want to educate on our listeners what is an IPP. And that's just it, right? There may be different ways they twist it, but at the end of the day, IPP is an IPP is an IPP. Nick Giovannetti: [00:40:14] Well, and I can give you a good example. Everybody here I would assume is familiar with the term Group RRSP. Group RRSP is not defined in the Income Tax Act. It's a made up term for RRSPs that are pooled benefits through a group. But if you look up Group RRSP in the Income Tax Act you won't find it because the underlying what CRA recognizes as the investment is just RRSP. You could call it fancy banana, but it's an RRSP. So again IPPs will follow the IPP rules and registration. They could be registered as defined benefit only or as a combination. So that might be one kind of flexibility piece. But just be aware of how it's registered. Dr. Wing Lim: [00:41:03] Right on, okay. So I want to thank Nick for so much wisdom, so much knowledge, so much information and the perspectives. Right? So we actually blown by quite like instead of half hour, way over. So we'll stop here the official one. Dr. Kevin Mailo: Thank you so much for listening to the Physician Empowerment podcast. If you're ready to take those next steps in transforming your practice, finances, or personal well-being, then come and join us at PhysEmpowerment.ca - P H Y S Empowerment dot ca - to learn more about how we can help. If today's episode resonated with you, I'd really appreciate it if you would share our podcast with a colleague or friend and head over to Apple Podcasts to give us a five-star rating and review. If you've got feedback, questions or suggestions for future episode topics, we'd love to hear from you. If you want to join us and be interviewed and share some of your story, we'd absolutely love that as well. Please send me an email at KMailo@PhysEmpowerment.ca. Thank you again for listening. Bye.
A corporate taxpayer requested that the Minister of National Revenue exercise her discretionary power under s. 247(10) of the Income Tax Act, R.S.C. 1985, c. 1 (5th Supp.) (“ITA”) to adjust the value of a non-arm's length transaction downward, which would, in turn, reduce the amount of the taxpayer's assessment. The Minister declined to do so. The taxpayer wished to challenge the Minister's decision, but it was unclear whether the Tax Court or Federal Court had jurisdiction to do so. The parties put a stated question to the Tax Court to determine the jurisdictional issue: Where the Minister of National Revenue has exercised her discretion pursuant to s. 247(10) of the ITA to deny a taxpayer's request for a downward transfer pricing adjustment, is that a decision falling outside the exclusive original jurisdiction granted to the Tax Court of Canada under s. 12 of the Tax Court of Canada Act, R.S.C. 1985, c. T-2 and s. 171 of the ITA? The Tax Court judge determined that the Tax Court had exclusive jurisdiction to review the Minister's decision. She held that the decision directly affected the computation of income, and was therefore part of the assessment. Appeals of assessments are within the Tax Court's jurisdiction. The Federal Court of Appeal reached the opposite conclusion and allowed the Crown's appeal. The decision is part of the process of the assessment, and the Tax Court only has the power to hear appeals of the product of that process. Furthermore, correcting an error in the Minister's decision requires a power to quash or issue an order of mandamus, and the Tax Court does not have those powers. Argued Date 2023-11-09 Keywords Courts - Jurisdiction, Income tax - Courts —Jurisdiction — Income tax — Whether review of exercise of Minister's power under subsection 247(10) of Income Tax Act is within Tax Court's exclusive original jurisdiction. Notes (Federal) (Civil) (By Leave) Disclaimers This podcast is created as a public service to promote public access and awareness of the workings of Canada's highest court. It is not affiliated with or endorsed by the Court. The original version of this hearing may be found on the Supreme Court of Canada's website. The above case summary was prepared by the Office of the Registrar of the Supreme Court of Canada (Law Branch).
Since F&O income is considered business income in taxation, most traders resort to section 44-AD of the Income Tax Act to file their taxes. CA Naveen Wadhwa, Vice President at Taxmann discusses with Aprajita Sharma of Mint Money why this practice falls under tax evasion. He says the Income Tax Department may send notices and levy penalties if it finds a major difference between the tax liability and the total tax paid. Tune in now for expert tips!!
As we highlight the importance of Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) goals, we consider the tax deductibility of related expenses. In this podcast, Cor Kraamwinkel, Candice Meyer and Margaret Vermaak highlight how ESG extends its impact from global sustainability goals to individual companies and individuals in South Africa. They explore three areas where ESG considerations influence taxation: transparency and disclosure, ethical tax contributions, and the tax treatment of ESG expenditure. They also emphasise that there is no dedicated section in the Income Tax Act for ESG; instead, general principles and case-specific analysis apply to determine the deductibility of such expenses. Guests: Cor Kraamwinkel, partner Webber Wentzel Tax, Candice Meyer, partner Webber Wentzel Corporate and Margaret Vermaak, senior associate Webber Wentzel Tax
Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates plan to renew their deposits with the Central Bank of Egypt that amount to more than USD10 billion and are due next year. The House approved amendments to the Income Tax Act that would raise the tax exemption threshold by 25% to EGP45k from EGP36k. It also approved a draft bill that will amend the 2022 law to raise the exceptional cost of living allowance to EGP600 for all state employees starting this month, double the EGP300 paid out previously, while also doubling an exceptional grant for pensioners to EGP600 from EGP300.The ministry of planning is allocating EGP529.7 billion to support social protection during FY23/24 budget.The ministry of finance hopes to collect USD1 billion by extending cars import scheme for Egyptians living abroad. Egypt and Jordan are currently conducting a technical and financial study to increase the electricity link between the two to 1.1 GW from 550 MW with a new subsea power cable.Fitch and S&P are reviewing Egypt's credit rating during the coming two weeks.The Suez Canal Economic Zone and a number of Chinese companies have signed agreements to establish textile projects worth a combined USD101.3 million in investment in the West Qantara Industrial Zone.Some 10-15 Chinese companies have shown interest in establishing a specialized industrial zone for chemicals with investments worth the equivalent of USD7.5-12 billion in CNY over the next three to four years.Some Turkish companies have shown interest to expand manufacturing footprints in Egypt.EGAL (FV: EGP53.58, OW) extended the deadline for submitting technical and financial offers for the rehabilitation of the company's facilities for one month until 12 November 2023 due to the large works required in the tender, based on the request of many companies. The government has awarded contracts to construct two transformer stations to SWDY (FV: EGP22.87, OW) and a subsidiary of Kuwaiti conglomerate Al Kharafi Group, according to media reports. Under the contracts, SWDY will establish a station at New Alamein and Al Kharafi will construct one at Tenth of Ramadan City. AMOC will distribute a cash dividend worth EGP0.65/share over two installments. EGP0.45/share will be distributed on 8 November 2023, and the remaining EGP0.20/share will be distributed on 7 March 2024, for shareholders on record on 5 November 2023. This implies a dividend yield of 7.2%.MHOT declared EGP10.00/share cash dividends (DY of 5.9%). Record date is 29 October 2023. Distribution date is 1 November 2023.Weekly Commodities Update | | Last Price | WoW Change, % | Brent, USD/bbl | 90.9 | 7.5% | Diesel-HSFO Spread, USD/ton | 458 | 17.3% | Egypt Urea, USD/ton | 440 | 0.0% | Polyethylene, USD/ton | 1,070 | 0.0% | Polypropylene, USD/ton | 968 | 0.0% | Steel/Iron Ore Spreads, USD/ton | 353 | -2.0% | LME Aluminum Cash Price, USD/ton | 2,172 | -1.5% | Egyptian Retail Cement, EGP/ton | 1,965 | -0.3% | Steam Coal FOB Newcastle Australia, USD/ton | 144 | 3.9% | SMP, USD/MT | 2,558 | 6.6% | Last price may vary week over week in some indices due to time difference
Mint's Shipra speaks to Karan Batra, managing partner, Chartered Club about Section 54F and 54 of the IT Act, tune in for more
In part three of our pensions law episode with Ross Gascho, we chat about how recent Income Tax Act amendments can provide more flexibility as to how defined contribution pensions plans can correct for under-contributions and over-contributions. ✨ Read the full episode transcript HERE ✨ Learn more about the topics/cases on the Lawyered website✨ Help to declutter the law on the Lawyered crowdfunding page
Dr. Kevin Mailo hosts Dr. Wing Lim interviewing KPMG tax lawyer Jason Pisesky, a Masterclass faculty member, about corporate structuring strategies and corporate tax planning. Jason pulls from a wealth of practical knowledge and experience to shed light on what to do and what to avoid with a PC. Dr. Wing Lim asks Jason to first explain the SBD, small business deduction, of $500,000 and strategies Jason advises around that amount. There are things to consider in how you structure your PC that will affect the SBD in the future, and Jason explains what those considerations are. Wing and Jason break down their discussion in ways that offer insight to physicians regardless of which career stage you're currently in.In this episode, you'll learn from KPMG tax lawyer Jason Pisesky how to set up PCs between spouses in similar career fields, or with partners, that offer the structure for corporate taxes. He breaks down why it may not be the best advice to invest everything into your PC, things to consider for future sale options, and when to start a trust if you want one. Above all, Jason shares that investing and structuring with intention is the best way to plan ahead and advises talking to a professional if you haven't started tax planning yet. About Jason Pisesky (masterclass faculty):Jason's practice covers a broad spectrum of taxation law matters including corporate, personal, farm and estate tax planning as well as representation in dispute resolution and litigation mattersJason joined KPMG in January 2021. Prior to starting at KPMG, he spent over six years working at a leading western Canadian boutique tax law firm. Jason has experience in both the tax dispute and tax planning for both personal and corporate taxpayers.Jason has worked with small and medium-sized owner-managed operations to reorganize structures in a tax-efficient manner, acting as counsel for vendors and purchasers in arm's length deals as well as families in the midst of related party estate and succession planning. He has argued on behalf of taxpayers in many contexts and obtained favourable results for taxpayers from auditors, appeals officers and lawyers at the Department of Justice. Jason has appeared before the Alberta Court of Queen's Bench.Resources Discussed in this Episode:Physician Empowerment Masterclass—Contact Information:Physician Empowerment: website | facebook | linkedinJason Pisesky: website | linkedin __TranscriptDr. Kevin Mailo: [00:00:01] Hi, I'm Dr. Kevin Mailo, one of the co-hosts of the Physician Empowerment podcast. At Physician Empowerment, we're dedicated to improving the lives of Canadian physicians personally, professionally, and financially. If you're loving what you're listening to, let us know. We always want to hear your feedback. Connect with us. If you want to go further, we've got outstanding programming both in-person and online. So look us up. But regardless, we hope you really enjoy this episode. Dr. Kevin Mailo: [00:00:34] All right. It looks like we've got everyone here. I am so sorry. Three years into everybody using Zoom, I still struggle with it, but we are slowly, slowly getting there. So at any rate, I want to thank everybody for joining us for the webinar tonight. I'm Kevin Mailo, one of the co-founders of the Physician Empowerment podcast. And our programming, as you know, we cover a wide spectrum of topics and today we are very, very glad to have Jason Pisesky returning back on the webinar, back on the show, to talk about tax hacks for busy physicians, busy medical professionals. And what we're going to be covering today is corporate structuring, one of the most powerful wealth creation vehicles that physicians enjoy in this country is the ability to be incorporated, to set up holding corporations. But it has to be done properly. And that's why we're bringing in an expert. So Jason is a tax attorney who works with KPMG. He is a KPMG tax attorney. And so he has an incredible, not only knowledge base, but a whole well of experience to draw on. So I'm going to be stepping back and Wing's going to be interviewing Jason. And if you like what you're hearing, you want to know more, come and join us for the Masterclass because this is what we teach. And Jason, of course, is one of our faculty members. So again, thank you, everyone, for being here tonight. And why don't I let you take it away, Wing? Dr. Wing Lim: [00:02:02] Okay. Thank you, Kevin. Yeah. So welcome, everyone, to tonight's exciting episode. I'm Dr. Wing Lim. As most of you know me, some of you don't. I'm one of the co-hosts and co-founders of Physician Empowerment. So Jason and I went back quite a while. For those of us that haven't met Jason yet or haven't listened to a previous podcast, Jason and I went back, we were classmates on the dance floor and he was a really nice dude. He was openly admitted to be the teacher's pet. The teacher, the dance teacher, said that. He's a super nice guy with he doesn't have an ego problem. And a number of years later I went into some corporate tax planning pickle and then I dialed up his phone number and said, Hey, Jason, I think you're a lawyer, right? I think you can help me. So that's how we started to talk about a lot of these fancy corporate structuring that that he's doing on a daily basis. So welcome to the show, everyone, and welcome to the show, Jason. So Jason, so you and I were talking the other day about some good and bad stories in corporate tax planning. So you have two different cases you have in your file, in your portfolio of clients. Can you tell us the difference? And we can go from there. Jason Pisesky: [00:03:15] Absolutely. Happy to be here. Thank you very much. And Kevin as well for the very nice intro. Thank you. So, yeah, we were chatting yesterday and just about all the different aspects, facets there are to corporate tax planning and wealth building, just some of the things I've seen. And we got talking about the issue of corporate association. So there's many different types of relationships in the Income Tax Act. There's related association, there's affiliation, there's connected, foreign affiliates, all these different terms for how different taxpayers can be linked to one another and what that means. For your small business corporation, one of the big ones is association. If you're associated, that means you have to share certain benefits. But there can be certain benefits on top of that too, to actually being. So it's not all consequences. What we were talking about was the approach to corporate investing. If you are associated corporations, you have to share the small business deduction. We talked about that a little bit in our last show. Small business deduction gets you the low rate of tax on generally the first $500,000 of income earned corporately on active business income. Jason Pisesky: [00:04:20] So if you're associated, you have to share that amount, that 500,000. By the same token, if you're associated, I'm sorry to back up, when you earn investment income, that might start to reduce your small business deduction. Even if you're just one company and you're not sharing with anyone. And so we got talking about kind of some ways to structure around those two problems, not wanting to share, not wanting to reduce the small business deduction either. So we're talking about a client I've worked with in the past. It was two medical professionals. I've seen many ways done, many times done this way. The idea is you just have two different doctors, doctor/dentist, doctor/lawyer, and they each just have their own PC and they don't have any cross-shareholdings in each other's PC. So they just wholly owned their own. And that's the way to avoid association. Association arises once you start to own some shares of the other one, it can start to cause a problem. Not automatically, but once you cross certain percentage thresholds. Dr. Wing Lim: [00:05:20] So can we just stop there? Because I think we need to clarify this thing because not everybody may be on the same page. Right? So this is, you're talking about husband and wife. They're both professionals, let's say, pick this first case that they have both medical professionals. They both own a PC, and there are certain tax advisors, accountants would advise them, hey, you know, you can share a PC together. Right? And then so you're talking about the nuances about is this a good or a bad thing to do? Is that what we're diving into? Right. Jason Pisesky: [00:05:49] Yeah. Or even, hey, just, you know, both of you be 50/50 shareholders in each other's PC. Just, you know, if one doctor has an up year, one has a down year, then you can maybe pay some dividends or shift or share in the growth across both of them. Yeah. So kind of a couple of different avenues to why you may get there, but the likely ideal structure is to have both of them having one PC, both of them doing their own thing, and both of them getting that full 500,000 shelter on the income until the investment base grows big enough. And then you have different problems. And what I've seen in other files is, for example, I had one where, again, it was it was two professionals. One of them had ceased kind of working and was just going to be the stay-at-home spouse. But they had kind of some cross-shareholdings. The one who had stopped working had been very successful and had built up a multi-million dollar portfolio in the PC. And then they were finding, though, that the investment income in that, call it the inactive PC, was starting to reduce the small business deduction in the active PC and starting to reduce the ability to kind of grow this tax-deferred base. Yet there's some easy steps you can go through to sever that association, to get rid of those shareholdings, change them into different shareholdings, transfer them over, repurchase them, lots of different avenues to kind of fix the problem as to for when they came to us. But yeah, and it's one of those things that happens organically, happens over time. And if you don't have that good advice at the outset, then, again, it wasn't a problem for the first, you know, three, four, five years. But after many, many years of working and building up this wealth, you start to have these relationships that maybe you didn't expect or you definitely probably don't want. So. Dr. Wing Lim: [00:07:32] Right. So I can totally relate. That's exactly us, right, some of you know, my wife and Jason definitely knows us both, and that's when I went to Jason because we had, over the years, right, we didn't have these nice seminars and webinars to go to. We didn't have the good mentors and advisors. We just bumble along the way. And before long, so I have a bunch of corporations, she has a bunch of corporations and everything collided, right? We share some of them, not all of them, and become a big spider web. And by the time we want to think about, oh, do we, can we take a SBD, small business deduction, it becomes like separating a Siamese twin, pair of twins. Right? Becomes very difficult. So what are the consequences? You talk about this erosion of the small business deduction. Can you bring everybody up to speed. This 2017, 18 new tax rule that came and stayed? How that would have impacted like this couple, this doctor / dentist couple with this erosion, what would that mean in tax load? Jason Pisesky: [00:08:34] Absolutely. So corporations generally have a favorable tax rate, kind of no matter what your situation is. You know, at the height, again, we have this across cross-Canada audience. So the starting place, once you work through all the math, is, you know, in the low to mid 20s for the corporate tax rate, 23, 24, 25%, on active business income. We're going to talk about active business income right now, which everyone here would be earning from their medical practice. So that's your starting place. However, for small businesses, for small business corporations, there's a benefit, the small business deduction, that gives you a lower rate of tax for the first $500,000 of income. Slight variances across different provinces. Sometimes there's a provincial rate versus the federal, a different 500,000 amount. So it's not always 500,000 depending on the province you're in. But yeah, and that will drop it down to the low teens, low to mid-teens. So again, 11 to 12, 13% depending on the province you're in, and that's where the advantage comes. So you earn $100 of active business income and you don't need to take it out to spend it. Buy bonus or dividend. Then you just keep it in. And so instead of if you had maybe earned that personally, you would have paid up to 50, up to or even above 50% tax, depending on some provinces and tax rates. And then you'd only have, you know, $48 left to invest, leave it in the company and you all of a sudden might have 88, $89 to invest. So that's the advantage of having the small business deduction and why you don't want it reduced. And then but you also have to be mindful of how you are, you know, you have that $88, call it, you invest that and then it's going to start generating investment income or capital gains. Jason Pisesky: [00:10:21] So you have to be mindful of tracking that as well, because once you have too much investment income, that can also start to reduce your small business deduction. And then there's also, the third one is there's also rules around once you reach a certain size, once you have, it's a very large amount, kind of I think it's right now 15 million and then it gets phased out slowly. So that's a far down the road concern for most. But yeah, those are the concerns of why you want it and how you start to lose it. And then planning around it is do we move those, we move those investments out of the PC, and if you're you're married and have a spouse, then you can try to put those into your spouse's hands. And like I was saying with that first example of the couples who have one corporation for one doctor, one corporation for the other, you can do the same thing if you have a spouse who doesn't have the advantage of being able to use a PC, their stay at home spouse, or they are just in a profession or a career where they don't have access to them. Which is most, then yeah, you can maybe make an investment corporation in that person's name and just figure out how to shovel all the assets into that other person's hands to go there. And then the income earned on that won't affect the small business deduction in the prime active business generating PC. Dr. Wing Lim: [00:11:39] Right, now so can I make a couple of points and observation? Number one, this husband and wife, the two spouses having separate corporations, even for yeah, medical versus non-medical corporations, right? Like for me we're not a double medical income, right? I'm a medical income. My wife has a bunch of corporations that are non-medical. But, and so this separation is not just good for tax planning for those of us, and a lot of the listeners are real estate investors, right? And when you want to apply for mortgages, you need your lending power. You know what? Everybody has a ceiling, right? Some banks, three, four, five high is probably 11 doors that they will lend you. Right? And again, we didn't know better, so we cosigned the loan for all of the properties that we had and then found that, oh-oh, when the time comes, we have capital to grow, now they say no, because you already exceeded that, right? So again, it makes sense to have husband and wife separate the corporations, right? Especially if you're going into investments, then you won't, you again have to, like double the amount of small business deduction, now you have double the amount of credit rooms to grow in the real estate empire. So that's one observation. That's not exactly tax planning. Secondly is, yeah, I have colleagues that have such a good year. They're up in the years and the stock portfolio did very well and their, I think their passive income that year I think exceeded - I forgot how much - I think first 50,000 they give you free, right? By the time you're 150,000, the small business deduction has gone. And then so this poor chap ended up losing the whole small business deduction. And so that was a very, very painful year. I would have thrown up if the accountant just said, cut the check. Right? I would have thrown up. Jason Pisesky: [00:13:30] Yeah, you got the numbers right there. Yeah. So the first 50,000 of income, investment income to shelter doesn't affect your small business deduction. And the policy behind that being like, hey, corporations have to keep some money on hand to pay their current expenses, working capital, so and yeah, you shouldn't just have to keep that in burlap bags tucked under the bed. You can put that in a savings account and earn some interest. That's the reasoning behind it. But yeah, once you go above 50,000 of investment income, which includes capital gains, the taxable portion, it starts reducing the small business deduction that 500,000 on a 5 to 1 basis. So every dollar, so $50,001, you lose $5 of your small business deduction. So by, once you have 100,000 above 50,000, i.e. the 150 you talk about, your small business deduction is completely ground away. And you may have, you may find yourself having, you know, an extra 10 to 15% tax on that 500,000, which is, let's see if can do quick math in my head. You know, an extra $75,000 of tax. Now I'm self-conscious and want to double check that, but... Dr. Wing Lim: [00:14:35] Well, it is very painful. How about that? Jason Pisesky: [00:14:39] Yeah. 75. There we go. All right, good. All right. If it's a 15% spread between the two, it's kind of in and around there. It'll be 10 to 15%. So. Dr. Wing Lim: [00:14:48] Right. So suddenly you cough up with that because you had a good year. And when you think about, Wow, this guy is very successful. But when you think about it, by the time we retire, 150k, you hope there's 150k. 150k doesn't go very far by the time we retire, most of us, right? And so that's important. And the problem is this guy was not old enough to retire. They were just winding down. Still have an active PC. Right? And so this is very, very painful. The other observation is a lot of my colleagues, and they talk to their everyday accountant, they're advised to invest everything inside their PC. Right? And so, Jason, would you advise that or would you advise against that? Jason Pisesky: [00:15:29] I would generally not for the one reason we talked about. The three big reasons come to my mind immediately. One, we talked about, hey, you're going to have to start to juggle this small business deduction as the portfolio grows and you'll probably start to get very annoyed at playing that game and having to time everything, to the non-tax reason, creditor protection. You generally want your assets not sitting right next to the business where if the business gets sued they're exposed. And so, yet professionals have a bit of extra layer to deal with there. We talked about this a little bit on the tax ID, we'll talk about it in two weeks time on the Masterclass. But professional corporations, you generally don't have that same type of corporate shield that someone who's just doing real estate or, you know, running a general store or whatever in a corporation would where there's a liability that arises because of the profession, the professional and the PC are usually equally on the hook. And there's insurance and things, of course. But for that reason it's also advantageous to kind of move things out of the PC to the extent you can into, again, ideally a spouse's hands if that's tenable to someone. And then the third reason is if you have a business that may be salable in the future, capital gains deduction, which shelters currently $971,000 of capital gains, it becomes harder to access as you have a big build-up of what we would call inactive passive investment assets in the corporation. So again, not all PCs are salable, but if it is or, you know, if there's a clinic or something else, usually having the investments not with the shares that may be sold is advantageous. So most generally advise to not just keep it all in the PC, even though that's simple and maybe hey, the first couple of years you do that, but long term you want a better, more nimble structure. Dr. Wing Lim: [00:17:23] Right. So while most accountants told us that medical practice were nothing, but practices are sold, right? Not very frequent, but they are. I'll give you an example. 30 years ago I bought a practice, right, that's when nobody wanted to buy a practice, I did. I borrowed money I hadn't got, bought my dream practice at the time. We just talked to friends who sold their practices at our clinic. We are in a joint clinic, new doctors come and buy out the old doctors, right? So these things do happen, right? And so I think that what you talk about is not totally out of date or irrelevant. It is irrelevant for some people who are planning to retire. Right? If they're lucky enough to be bought out, they want to be sure because this purification, that's what you're talking about, with the purification rule. There's the time of the sale and T-24 months. Right? Two years prior, you better plan your purification. Right? Jason Pisesky: [00:18:18] Yeah. And I think even like ten years ago, I would have probably said, like you probably know, like based on your medical field if your PC is salable, but, and I don't know what the kind of what you're hearing from, you know, all the back channels, but what I'm starting to see is much more consolidation and there actually is a push, I know like it's happening with optometry, with dentistry, where they are having big conglomerates come in and try to snap up practices and build a big portfolio. And, you know, I don't know the exact inner workings, but it looks like kind of like, you know, make a public company model where you just, you know, own hundreds of practices across the country. And so I would say if, definitely you're on the younger side, you never know. So I think you kind of proceed on that basis of, Hey, I may be able to sell this. And so if it just, you know, is a little more kind of work expense and complexity, but I kind of set myself up for that potential down the line that would think it's it's worth it just based on how much the field is changing right now for medical professionals and kind of... Dr. Wing Lim: [00:19:20] Yeah, so now in Alberta, we're not, we're still mostly fee-for-service, right? So we did our physician and empowerment talks. We were in Mexico, Kevin and I, teaching in Mexico and there's this very senior guy, he was high up in CMA and all that, and he retired and he sold his practice for a very high price. He had a very nice panel. So in Ontario it's capitation model, right? So you have the whole panel and each panel carry, every patient has a price tag, multiply I think 200 bucks times our number of patients, right? And so basically he sold it, the whole panel. And he was very happy. Right? So these things are actually more relevant than what we like to think, right? So I just want everybody to just maybe tuck it, file it somewhere in your brain and say, don't just dismiss this. Right? It might apply to you. And that's a lot of money. Right? So right now is, what, $915 thousand dollars, almost? Jason Pisesky: [00:20:16] 971. So if it's not, and it's indexed to inflation, so if it's not a million next year, it will be by 2025, especially with inflation the way it's currently going. So even a million bucks of shelter. Dr. Wing Lim: [00:20:30] So yeah, exactly. And if you're not even, so if you're practicing just over a million at least whatever you sold it for, then it's tax-free, right? And then for those that are advantageous to have a spouse in there, whoever else to share the PC, I think each one have that capital exemption, then it could potentially be a big thing. And some people, they have a practice, not just a medical practice, they have a business side, let's say an esthetic practice, right? I know of one of our consultants, Mark Friesen, he's one of our consultants that work with some of our clients, and he worked with a Calgarian physician who had a cosmetic practice. And Mark is an accountant. He's kind of a CFO for hire. And helped to shape the practice in two years time, so they sold it for a very good price to a conglomerate, right? And only because they did all the right accounting, right tax planning, right structural corporate planning. Jason Pisesky: [00:21:26] Mhm. Happens a lot in dentistry. You'll have the dental business and then the hygiene. The hygienist business. Dr. Wing Lim: [00:21:32] Right, Right. Jason Pisesky: [00:21:33] So yeah, absolutely. Again you'll have hey, maybe you start a clinic and you have a building in there too. Or maybe you want to sell the building. There's opportunities there. So. Yeah. Where are you, where are you keeping things. I would say the rule of thumb is not just to keep it all in the PC. I'd say, yeah, you kind of need that advice and that, the long view range of where I may be in 20-30 years, what my exit plan looks like. And sometimes an admission of I have no idea what my exit plan might look like. I just need to, you know, set the chess pieces in the right place. So whatever comes, I'm in a good spot. Dr. Wing Lim: [00:22:04] Right. Now we're on the topic of small business deduction, I want to just dive into other things because a lot of physicians later on, they join venture with other people, other physicians or other businesses they encounter, or investment or real estate, they're going to different joint ventures, partnerships. But I think last time you talked about a lot of the tax ID, and I heard that if you're not careful, you end up everybody and their spouses, everybody shared one small business deduction of 500,000. So can you walk us through some of the bad or good and bad scenarios of how that could happen? Jason Pisesky: [00:22:40] Absolutely. So I mean the most popular model, tax aside, for professionals to work together is a partnership. You know, the LLP, that's what 98% of all legal arrangements are for lawyers, sorry, accountants are just LLPs, partnerships, limited liability partnerships. So the starting rule with nothing else is that you kind of share one small business deduction between all the partners when you have a partnership. There were some old rules where you could kind of have two PCs and you have a PC providing services to the actual partner PC and then everybody got their own small business deduction. That was shut down maybe 2018, 2019, I don't think earlier. Yeah. So. But now, you kind of go back to the default rule, Okay, everybody shares the small business deduction if you're a partner. But there are other, so there are other arrangements out there that may give access to allow people to work in some way together or collaboratively in a way that isn't a partnership and everybody gets their small business deduction still. There are joint ventures, there's cost-sharing arrangements. Those are the big ones. You just have to be very careful with the wording of the arrangements to make sure you're not a partnership at law because a judge will look through it and say, fine, you slap the label on it of this, but when I actually look at it, it is a partnership. So there are ways for professionals to work in tandem, to some extent at least, and be able to still protect their small business deduction and not have to share it with the other professionals. Dr. Wing Lim: [00:24:19] Right. So let's say if some doctors, they got together and say, Hey, we want to buy this piece of land or just buy, start a new corporation, buy a strip mall medical building. So if they structure it incorrectly, then maybe it would collide with everybody's whole codes or PCs? Jason Pisesky: [00:24:38] Yeah. And so that kind of circles us back to the association problem where we said we're like, Oh, you have two spouses, you should both just have your own PC. Because what can happen is, say you have two unrelated professionals who both have a PC, they're the only shareholders of it, and they say, Yeah, let's buy this piece of farmland and they buy it in a corporation that they both own 50/50, then you're probably all going to end up associated and you're going to be sharing the small business deduction with this unrelated doctor who you're not even carrying on a medical practice, he is just a buddy of yours who you're not carrying on medical practice with at all, in partnership or otherwise. And because of an investment you've made, you end up sharing the small business deduction. Dr. Wing Lim: [00:25:19] Right. Yeah. So I seem like I'm belaboring this, but I've seen a ton of this, right? I've been to some real estate clubs for 12 years, investment clubs, and I certainly know people who were avid real estate investors, right? They just keep forming partnerships and JVs and corporations and some, they begin to go into limited partnerships. Right? So but yeah, so basically, I tell my friends, you're just jeopardizing everybody's SBD if you have a good year, if you sold that building, that multifamily or whatever, you're going to have a tax problem. Right? So then for people who already have the spider web, or even with a spouse or non-spouse, other business partners, what would be your advice, Jason, to them? Jason Pisesky: [00:26:04] I think talk to someone. I know, I like the term spider web, I see it all the time of you know oh I'm doing a new thing, pop up a new company, I'm doing a new thing, pop up a company, and it kind of sounds like maybe people could take two minutes like, Oh, Jason is saying, you want lots of companies, you want companies for everything and to protect all your stuff, that may or may not be the case. It's, you know, everyone's situation is completely unique. We have lots of clients who come in and they have the spider web and we end up kind of collapsing in on itself because, hey, you have too many, too many things going on. And your life is just kind of overly complex without giving you the benefits maybe you thought you were getting from it. So again, we have a handful of files right now, I always have a handful of files on the go, where we are, yeah, we have ones where we're adding complexity because they come to us and hey, you could really benefit from having some more entities and moving some things around. And we have some where they come to us and we have, hey, you have too many for what you have going on. Let's amalgamate them. You know, combine some companies together, let's dissolve them, and then simplify a bit and then rethink about what kind of complexity you want and what's going to benefit you. So that's the blessing and the curse of being a small business owner is it's highly customizable. Everybody goes through it entirely different, like what kind of investments you want to make first, if you want to get into real estate, if you want to build an investment portfolio, then jump into real estate down the line, completely changes and shapes how your structure grows out. But just being intentional about it, I think, and speaking to professionals. Dr. Wing Lim: [00:27:34] Intention, yeah. Intentionality I think is a big one. But most of us don't. We just kind of wing it, right, all the way through until we got caught in a spider web. So yeah, there's so much we can cover. Now, just one last question. Right? And then we'll open this file and then we'll be done. So at what point in our career, typical professional career, would you say that it's worthwhile to consider a family trust of sorts? Jason Pisesky: [00:27:59] Um, for a professional, it's probably once you have kids, if kids are in your future, again, no real rule of thumb. I think it makes sense to chat with your accountant and your lawyer about it and find the right time, but I don't think you really need one immediately. So traditionally we would keep trusts around for 21 years. If people have heard the 21 year rule. Like trust can extend for decades and decades and decades. But there's a taxable event at the 21 year rule where, 21 year mark, where the trust is, basically it's deemed to, for tax purposes, to die. It, all of its property is deemed to be disposed of, reacquired, there's a taxable event if there's an accrual of value in there. So again, that sounds scary. There's ways to deal with that. You can transfer property out of the trust, you can roll it out, and then things continue on. The big, one of the big benefits of the trust is around sale planning and structuring. And so, you know, if you put a trust in too early, then you might miss the sale date. So I would say you don't want one fresh out of med school unless you kind of are going to be someone who kind of slowly grows and builds practices and then sells them and builds a practice and then sells it, maybe that makes sense. But I would say, yeah, graduate med school, build your practice, grow a little bit of wealth, start a family. And that's kind of when you want the family in family trust, right? Dr. Wing Lim: [00:29:20] So what you're saying is there's a because there's a 21 year lifespan, you don't want to start too early. But then when you have kids and then you build some wealth, maybe some wealth outside of your PCs, right, and then it gets, when the spider web is starting to emerge, right, maybe it's time to consider a family trust, right? Jason Pisesky: [00:29:39] Yeah. And I would say a good, to send people away, a good indicator of when you may be ready is when you start having another corporation. Hey, I want to start a real estate investment corporation. Because again, there's restrictions in most provinces on who can actually be in a family trust that owns shares of a PC. So in Alberta, for example, it can only be the professional, their spouse, and children under the age of 18. So that's restrictive. Otherwise you could have anyone under the sun in your family trust if you have a real estate company. And so yeah, but then it's great because you can have these things right under the family trust. And so, yeah, having that family trust at that point, that's kind of a good indicator of definitely when hey, I should talk to someone and see if now's a good time because I'm going to start a bunch of real estate things on the side. Should I do it under a family trust? And get that creditor protection, get the benefit to the family. And again, those may be more easily sold entities, too, whether they get the capital gains deduction or not, the ability to share proceeds amongst beneficiaries. Dr. Wing Lim: [00:30:42] Right on. Well, so good. So thank you, Jason, again for a wealth of information. I don't want to make this going on and on, I think there's a lot here to be digested and I want to thank you for bringing your wealth of knowledge and experience every day, a very live example that pertain to us. And of course, the different people here have different backgrounds, different scenarios, and different stages of life. And I think we're going to systematically look into these at future sessions in our masterclass and future podcasts. So thank you again, Jason. And so I guess, is it fair to summarize that this word that you bring up, this intentionality, right? We cannot just go in blindly and just go and wing it, right? I think we start a PC with, okay, what do we need, a PC, that was one step, that one thing we need to cross. Make that decision. Okay, I need a PC and then somebody says you need a whole code. Should I do it? Should I not? The spouse, both of the careers, and then there's a bunch of others. Right? So I guess what you're telling us today, the take-home message, is so that we have this intention to deal with this and when things get a little complicated, don't just be complacent with just what you think you know. It's time to maybe ask some professionals. Jason Pisesky: [00:32:00] Yeah. I think that's well said. Yeah. The intention is important and, again, once you start to have some material accrual of wealth in the PC, that's when it's time to start thinking about do I need to add some complexity? And once you're starting to make different kinds of investments, again, the second opinion, it's talking to other people and just seeing what's going on and what's available. You don't want to go, you know, as with doctors and their patients, you don't kind of want to go 25 years never talking to a doctor and then show up riddled with issues. You know, you don't kind of want to go 25 years without talking to a tax planner or somewhere if you're building some complexity into your life. Dr. Kevin Mailo: [00:32:40] That was kind of what I was doing, Jason So you're saying I shouldn't. Jason Pisesky: [00:32:43] Are we talking about the medical part or the plotting part? If you've not seen a doctor in a while... Dr. Kevin Mailo: [00:32:49] No, no, no, the doctor thing I'm doing. But yeah, certainly the tax planning, I really got to sit down with you at some point and begin to sort this out, because you're absolutely right, both of you, about being intentional behind this. And also one other point that you made, Jason, is being that everybody's situation is unique and that's why there is no cookie-cutter solution here. You need to sit down in front of a professional, a great accountant, a great tax lawyer like yourself, and really sort through what you need to be doing for you, not what a colleague did or someone else that you share clinic space has done, it's about what you as an individual need to do and it needs to align with your broader life goals in terms of retirement and wealth creation. Jason Pisesky: [00:33:32] Yeah. And I think I may have said the benefit or the curse or the benefit of the cost, like, you know, you're not someone who's just working at a bank. You have a great pension or, with the government, even more. And they have, you know, a great guaranteed pension that's going to look after you. You're most likely out-earning those people. But that does put the onus on everyone on this call, you have to think about it. And if you, and it can be, you know, orders of magnitude between the people who put the thought into it and are intentional and get those extra percentage points every year compounded. There's tons of calculators that say, you know, adding 1% every year to your growth magnifies it. And here we're talking about not 1%, you know, tax savings is often your biggest expense in any business. And so again yeah, just over the life of your career, it's a huge opportunity. Again, everyone will probably be fine if you do no tax planning, but the opportunity is there to just really blow things out of the water. So. Dr. Kevin Mailo: [00:34:30] I love that. I love that. All right. I think we should wrap it up. We always say we're going to keep this like, short, like 20 minutes, 30 minutes. But we always go over and I love it because what you have to share is just so outstanding, Jason And it's real value to the physician community where we're all busy, we're all working. So again, thank you so much for joining us today and we look forward to having you back again. Jason Pisesky: [00:34:54] A pleasure, as always. Thanks for having me and thanks for riding shotgun with me, Wing. Pleasure, as always. Dr. Wing Lim: [00:35:00] Well, yeah. Thank you. Thank you again, Jason, for your valuable time. And we look forward to more episodes together. Dr. Kevin Mailo: [00:35:08] Thank you so much for listening to the Physician Empowerment podcast. If you're ready to take those next steps in transforming your practice, finances or personal well-being, then come and join us at PhysEmpowerment.ca - P H Y S Empowerment dot ca - to learn more about how we can help. If today's episode resonated with you, I'd really appreciate it if you would share our podcast with a colleague or friend and head over to Apple Podcasts to give us a five-star rating and review. If you've got feedback, questions or suggestions for future episode topics, we'd love to hear from you. If you want to join us and be interviewed and share some of your story, we'd absolutely love that as well. Please send me an email at KMailo@PhysEmpowerment.ca. Thank you again for listening. Bye.
The Hon'ble Supreme Court of India (“Hon'ble SC”) in the recent decision in Saraf Exports v. CIT settled the issue of entitlement of deduction as per Section 80IB of the Income Tax Act, 1961 (‘IT Act'). The issue was pertaining to the receipts under Duty Drawback scheme (‘DDS') and transfer of Duty Entitlement Pass book scheme (‘DEPB'). During the subject period, the taxpayer received certain incentives under DDS and DEPB. These said benefits were claimed as deduction u/s Section 80IB of the IT Act, as being ‘derived from' its industrial undertaking of manufacturing wooden handicrafts. The Hon'ble Supreme Court held that export incentives will not qualify as first-degree nexus for the purposes of claim of deduction under Section 80-IB. The decision has reiterated the principle laid down earlier that restrictive meaning must be given to the expression ‘derived from'. Link: Impact analysis of the Supreme Court decision in Saraf Exports v. CIT: Worth the wager? Audio Source: An article published on the LKS website in June 2023.Authors: Krishna Laasya V Voice: Dikshita Damodaran, Amrusha Monga
Save on your income tax liability successfully by benefitting from the tax-saving investment options.Learn more about the various tax exemptions and deductions applicable under various sections of the Income Tax Act, 1961 to maximise your savings.
Recently, an amendment was brought in through the Finance Act 2023 in section 11 of the Income Tax Act, 1961, through which only 85% of the total sums paid or credited by one charitable entity to another charitable entity will be deemed to be “application” towards charitable purposes. This amendment was brought in to discourage the practice of forming multiple layers of charitable entities in order to retain more than 15% at each stage. However, it may seriously impact those charitable entities which are working on channelizing the donations by aggregating donations from multiple donors and applying almost whole of the donations by contributing to charitable entities engaged in actual application towards end causes. Thus, these charitable entities that act as aggregators can be subject to taxation at maximum marginal rates in spite of applying almost 100% of the donations received by it by way of donations to other charitable entities. This deeming provision causes uncertainty for the charitable entities, and a clarification from CBDT in this respect would be welcome. Link: Deemed application provision causes uncertainties for donation aggregators | Lakshmikumaran & Sridharan Attorneys (lakshmisri.com) Audio Source: An article published on the LKS website in May 2023.Authors: Sanjhi Agarwal and Prachi Bhardwaj Host: Arpit MehraExpert: Sanjhi Aggarwal
Overnighters, Episode 544: Coinbase Considers UAE SEC Cost Ripple $200M Binance Halts BTC withdrawals, Twice and More Collect this Cover at: https://awrd.gg/4604 The TL;DL - Liechtenstein plans to accept Bitcoin as payment for government services. The tiny European country is the latest to show growing acceptance of cryptocurrencies, and its decision is likely to have a positive impact on the markets. Estonia tightens cryptocurrency regulations, reducing the number of registered firms by 80%. The new law requires cryptocurrency firms to keep substantial capital reserves and have genuine ties to Estonia. As a result, many firms have withdrawn their licenses or been rejected by the country's Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU). The FIU says the law will help to "professionalize" the cryptocurrency industry and make it more difficult for criminals to use cryptocurrency to launder money. China's Supreme Court Clarifies Crypto Status. The ban has led to a sharp decline in the price of cryptocurrencies and a decrease in the hash rate of the Bitcoin network. It is unclear whether the Chinese government will eventually lift the ban, but it is crucial to stay up-to-date on the latest developments in China's cryptocurrency policy. South Korean lawmaker under investigation for suspicious crypto transactions. South Korea's financial watchdog has reported a series of crypto transactions by an opposition party lawmaker to local prosecutors, sparking domestic outrage over a potential conflict of interest. The lawmaker, Rep. Kim Nam-kuk, allegedly withdrew 800,000 WEMIX tokens from late February to early March 2022, just months after co-sponsoring an amendment to the Income Tax Act that deferred taxation on virtual assets. The investigation is ongoing, and the case has harmed the South Korean crypto market. Coinbase is meeting with policymakers and regulators in the UAE this week, as the company looks to expand into the region. CEO Brian Armstrong has praised the UAE for its progressive crypto regulations, and the company is hoping to set up a regional hub in the country. Binance halted Bitcoin withdrawals for the second time in two days on May 8, citing a backlog of pending transactions and high network fees. The exchange said it was replacing the pending transactions with a higher fee so that they would be picked up by mining pools. The recent withdrawal halts are likely to harm the cryptocurrency markets, as Bitcoin's price has fallen around 3.5% from its weekly high. Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse said on May 8 that the company spent $200 million defending itself against a lawsuit brought by the SEC. The lawsuit alleges that Ripple sold XRP tokens as an unregistered security, but Ripple denies the allegations. The case is ongoing and could have a significant impact on the U.S. crypto industry. (5/8/2023)-Welcome back to the Crypto Overnighter. My name is Nikodemus, I'll be your host as we take a nightly look at the crypto, NFT, and metaverse space and the industry surrounding it. And keep in mind, nothing in this show should ever be considered financial advice. Email: nick@cryptoovernighter.com Salem Friends of Felines: https://sfof.org/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/CryptoCorvus1 Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/user?u=67416221
The podcast discusses the intricacies of TDS (tax deducted at source) withholding, which affects the taxable value under the Goods and Services Tax (GST) system in India. Under the Income Tax Act, 1961, TDS is withheld by Indian service recipients on the amount payable to foreign service providers. To clarify the taxable value under service tax, the Central Board of Excise and Customs (CBEC) stated that the taxable value shall be the gross value, including TDS. However, the net receipt in the hands of foreign service providers is reduced to the extent of TDS, which can be overcome by restructuring the transaction. The issue is whether the taxable value for discharging GST should be confined only to the contractual payment or whether the amount of TDS should also be added. The podcasr discusses court decisions on the valuation provisions in the Finance Act, 1994, and the GST law. The author highlights the intricacies of TDS withholding, which has been a matter of dispute in the past. While some court decisions have held that TDS should not be added to the taxable value, the podcast suggests that the valuation provisions under the GST law require a closer examination of whether the contractual payment made to the supplier can be equated with 'sole consideration.' While the Finance Act considers the contractually agreed amount as the gross amount charged, the GST law provides that the taxable value shall be the transaction value, i.e., the price actually paid or payable. However, the presence of 'sole consideration' would depend on the facts and circumstances of each case, and it needs to be examined whether the contractual payment made to the supplier can be equated with 'sole consideration', wherein TDS is borne by the service recipient.The podcast concludes that the presence of 'sole consideration' would largely depend on the facts and circumstances of each case.Link:Withholding Income Tax: Withholding the ambiguity in GST Valuation? | Lakshmikumaran & Sridharan Attorneys (lakshmisri.com)Audio Source: An article published on the LKS website in April 2023.Authors: Shiwani Kaushik, Associate LKS
This week on the Tuesday Wire, Milly has her weekly catch-up with the National Party's Dr Shane Reti, and speaks to him about Housing Minister Chris Bishop's most recent speech delivered last week. In the speech, Chris Bishop revealed a number of changes regarding legislation and policy to do with the current build-to-rent scheme, including changes to the Overseas Investment Act and to the Income Tax Act. Dr Shane Reti and Milly discuss the current issues to do with housing and the party's plans to help ease the pressure on the housing market.
The government, in the Finance Act, 2022, introduced a new section 194R to the Income Tax Act, 1961. It makes it mandatory for resident Indians to pay a 10 per cent tax on benefits received by them. Section 194R makes it mandatory to deduct 10 per cent tax at source on the value of any benefit or perquisite received by a resident Indian. This section was introduced by the government to widen the tax base and reduce tax evasion in the country. Experts, however, have flagged several concerns. Are there any exceptions to the act? The section will not apply if the value of "benefit" or “perquisite” provided is less than Rs 20,000. It is also not applicable to an Individual or HUF with turnover not exceeding Rs 1 crores for business or Rs 50 lakhs for a professional in the immediately preceding year in which the benefit was provided. Why is it perplexing experts? The threshold prescribed under section 194R does not sync with the threshold prescribed under section 56. Under section 56, if the receipt of benefits by an individual or a Hindu Undivided Family (HUF) exceeds Rs 50,000 in a year, they are liable to pay a tax on it. However, under section 194R, the limit is Rs 20,000. According to experts, this would lead to tax outflow which is actually exempt in the hands of the recipient. The term 'benefit' or 'perquisite' is not defined in the Act. The government had earlier stated that the receipt may be in cash or kind, but no clear definition was provided. This would lead to additional administrative challenges. It will also be difficult to calculate the exact valuation of “benefits in kind” and it would make compliances more cumbersome. The act also brings samples received by doctors and travelling and other benefits received by influencers under its ambit. What can a taxpayer do if both sections 194R and 56 apply to the situation? Amrita Bhatnagar, associate director, at RBSA Advisors says that due to a lack of clear guidelines, they must pay the higher tax and claim the refund later through the income tax return (ITR). However, the government has not yet issued any clarification on these complications.
Any income or loss that is made from sale of equity shares is covered under the head ‘capital gains'. Income under this head is further classified into long term capital gains and short term capital gains based on the holding period of the shares. Holding period takes into account the duration for which the investment is held beginning from the date of acquisition to the date of sale or transfer. For income tax purposes, the holding periods for listed equity shares and equity mutual funds are different from that of other asset classes. If equity shares listed on a stock exchange are sold within a year of purchase, the seller may make short term capital gain (STCG) or incur a short-term capital loss (STCL). The seller makes short-term capital gain when shares are sold at a price higher than the purchase price. Short-term capital gains are taxable at 15 per cent -- irrespective of the tax slab the investor falls under. Any short term capital loss from sale of equity shares can be offset against short-term or long-term capital gain from any capital asset. If the loss is not set off entirely, it can be carried forward for eight years and adjusted against any short term or long term capital gains made during these eight years. A taxpayer will only be allowed to carry forward losses if he has filed his income tax return within the due date. If equity shares listed on a stock exchange are sold after 12 months of purchase, the seller may make a long-term capital gain (LTCG) or incur a long-term capital loss (LTCL). Until March 31, 2018, long-term capital gain made on the sale of equity shares or equity-oriented units of mutual funds was exempt from tax. But the rules changed from April 1, 2018. Now if a seller makes a long-term capital gain of more than Rs 1 lakh on the sale of equity shares or equity-oriented units of a mutual fund, the gain made will attract a long term capital gains tax of 10 percent -- plus applicable cess. Also, the benefit of indexation will not be available to the seller. Any long term capital loss from a transfer made on or after April 1, 2018 will be allowed to be set-off and carried forward according to the existing provisions of the Income Tax Act. So, the long-term capital loss can be set-off against any other long-term capital gain. Such loss can also be carried forward for subsequent eight years.
Global Policy Watch #1: How the Sri Lankan Economy UnraveledInsights on policy issues making news around the world— RSJWhat people do when they storm palaces is broadly instructive about what comes next.In 1792, the French insurgents determined to end whatever remained of the ancien regime stormed the palace of Tuileries and confronted the Swiss Guards who were defending the palace on the orders of Louis XVI. Blood, gore and massacre followed, at the end of which about eleven hundred combatants were killed. These included, as J.M. Thomson wrote in his history of the French Revolution:..common citizens from every branch of the trading and working classes of Paris, including hair-dressers, harness-makers, carpenters, joiners, house-painters, tailors, hatters, boot-makers, locksmiths, laundry-men, and domestic servants.The Bolsheviks were not to be outdone on the night of October 25, 1917, when they assaulted the Winter Palace at St. Petersburg on the orders of Lenin. The insurrectionists barely met with any resistance from the yunkers, the Cossacks and the women’s battalion guarding the palace. To quote John Reed from Ten Days That Shook The World (1935):On both sides of the main gateway the doors stood wide open, light streamed out and from the huge pile came not the slightest sound. Carried along by the eager wave of men, we were swept into the right hand entrance, opening into a great bare vaulted room, the cellar of the East wing, from which issued a maze of corridors and stair-cases. ...One man went strutting around with a bronze clock perched on his shoulder; another found a plume of ostrich feathers, which he stuck in his hat. The looting was just beginning when somebody cried, ‘Comrades! Don't touch anything! Don't take anything! This is the property of the People!’ Immediately twenty voices were crying, ‘Stop! Put everything back! Don't take anything! Property of the People!’ Many hands dragged the spoilers down. Damask and tapestry were snatched from the arms of those who had them; two men took away the bronze clock. Roughly and hastily the things were crammed back in their cases, and self-appointed sentinels stood guard. It was all utterly spontaneous. Through corridors and up stair-cases the cry could be heard growing fainter and fainter in the distance, ‘Revolutionary discipline! Property of the People.’The Filipinos did things a bit differently on Feb 24, 1986. As this news report suggests:It started with a rock fight, then the gate was opened for a few photographers and the crowd pushed through into the palace the Marcos family occupied for 20 years, shouting and grabbing anything they could carry. They snatched clothes, shoes, perfume, monogrammed towels. Some wolfed food from the table at which Ferdinand E. Marcos and his family had dined before leaving in American helicopters for Clark Air Base and flight from the country.Thousands of people were outside Malacanang Palace when the photographers arrived Tuesday night. Supporters of Corazon Aquino, who became president when Marcos fled, and Marcos loyalists started throwing rocks at each other.They rushed through the gate, turning left to the administration building or right to the living quarters. Marcos loyalists followed them. The fights and looting started. Cheering, the rioters climbed on top of three tanks. One grabbed an ammunition belt. Others took guns.Cut to present-day Sri Lanka. It has a foreign debt of over US$ 50 billion. Its foreign exchange reserves are about US$ 50 million. Inflation is running at over 50 per cent. The Sri Lankan Rupee has fallen by 80 per cent since the start of the year. What’s worse is that no one knows who is keeping score.Former President Gotabaya Rajapaksa fled the country this week. Right now, he is in Singapore negotiating his asylum with friendly countries in the middle-east (why not China?). His brothers couldn’t get out of Sri Lanka in time. Gotabaya’s military plane didn’t possibly have space for two more passengers. Blood is thinner than aviation fuel. The other forty-odd members of the clan who hold various constitutional and government posts have gone into hiding. The time was ripe for an attack on the Presidential palace. And it happened, as they say, duly. But this is how the Lankans did the storming (Photos: Arun Sankar/AFP)To misquote Tolstoy: happy citizens are all alike. Unhappy citizens are unhappy in different ways.Though unhappy, Sri Lankans look suspiciously upbeat here. So, one thing can be said for sure. There won’t be a revolution in Sri Lanka. The Lankans are a resilient, patient and easygoing lot. They have endured tough times in the past four decades. Now that the Rajapaksas are out of the frame, a national government is likely to be formed; a deal might get worked out with the multilateral agencies involving restructuring of debt, fresh borrowings from friendly countries, and prolonged pain of austerity for the rest of the decade. They will probably muddle through as they have done for much of their independent history. That apart, it is useful to appreciate how Sri Lanka ended up here. There are public policy lessons there. There are two lenses to apply. The first is the structural weakness in the Sri Lankan economy that has persisted for a long time. Then there is the proximate cause of the recent past that led to sovereign debt default and bankruptcy. We will examine both here.The Achilles' HeelIn 1948, the British left Sri Lanka (then Ceylon) with an economy that was quite similar to the many similar resource rich nations of the time. Manufacturing was non-existent, banking services were limited to a couple of cities and the mainstay of the economy was the exports of tea and rubber which were vulnerable to commodity cycles. However, it started with a good base of foreign reserve surplus that could cover imports for over a year. With this starting point, the obvious policy measures should have came into play. One, develop a manufacturing sector (public and private) that stimulates growth in the economy and reduces the dependency on imports of intermediates and finished products. Two, to develop the banking sector and create development finance institutions that could provide credit for this transition in the economy. Neither happened. In fact, the focus on the plantation economy deepened in the decade after independence. The foreign reserve surplus soon turned to a deficit as Sri Lanka continued to import higher-value goods, and the government found it difficult to raise revenues to support its spends as its population increased. By the mid-60s, Sri Lanka was contending with both a fiscal deficit and a current account deficit. The classic twin deficit pincer that low-income economies get caught in. Over the last six decades, it has struggled to come out of it. The reasons could be many - lack of domestic savings, absence of development finance institutions, inability to attract other sources of foreign capital like direct investment instead of debt and political instability and a long civil war that didn’t help the economy. Things didn’t go badly for Sri Lanka only in the last few years. Its economy was always fragile, as the seventeen different IMF bailout packages that started in 1965 indicate. See the table below for the history of IMF bailouts (SDR = Special Drawing Rights).The comparison with India during the same period is useful. India chose the more inefficient state-led industrialisation and capital creation model and overdid it by the 70s with the nationalisation of the banks. But it led to the creation of a manufacturing sector and the availability of credit. India also created relatively strong institutions for a developing economy during that time. That meant we avoided a sovereign debt default scenario till 1991. The Indian state, after having generated the initial impetus, should have gotten out of most of these areas by the mid to late 70s. But that’s another story. Sri Lanka never built that core capacity, nor did it follow the model of the ‘tiger’ economies of creating national champions in select sectors. In the early 80s it ‘opened’ its economy on the behest of the IMF that made these conditions collateral for further bailouts. The dismantling of duties and exchange controls made Sri Lanka even more dependent on imports as its nascent industries couldn’t compete with the foreign goods flooding in. The twin deficit continued to worsen and further de-industrialisation set in. There are things Sri Lanka is commended for during this time. It has the best HDI metrics in the region, with good quality healthcare and education available to its citizens. These should lead to better economic outcomes, provided the structural issues are addressed. That these metrics themselves were built on foreign debt makes their sustainability suspect. Over-indexing on one measure while avoiding a comprehensive cost-benefit analysis and the unintended consequences is an old public policy error. Why did things go from bad to worse in the past few years? Two things happened. One, the composition of Sri Lankan debt changed for the worse. Sri Lanka issued international sovereign bonds (ISBs) at attractive coupons that got in global fund houses into the mix with more dollar-denominated debt. China, too, got into the game with large infrastructure projects that have ended up as the proverbial white elephants. The chart below shows how its foreign debt stood in 2021.The market borrowings now contributing to 47 per cent shot up in the last decade. This fresh source of funds further lulled the policymakers. The government continued to spend and feed domestic consumption without a plan to control the fiscal deficit while borrowing to build infrastructure and pay for imports. In 2019, Gotabaya came into power, promising to reverse these policies. But the ‘strong man syndrome’ took over. There were bold initiatives announced with minimal debates and understanding of likely scenarios that could emerge. Corporate taxes and VAT were slashed in the hope of an economic boost. That didn’t come because there wasn’t an industrial base that could take advantage of this. The fall in tax revenues widened the fiscal deficit and increased the government’s borrowing from the central bank. The pandemic hit tourism, a significant contributor to the economy and a source of precious foreign exchange. The widening current account deficit had to be controlled, leading to another bold idea. The government announced an overnight transition to organic farming and banned the import of synthetic fertilisers and pesticides. There was no real conviction to organic farming here. It was just a means to reduce the import burden and bring the current account deficit under control. The consequences were disastrous. Paddy production fell over 20 per cent, and there was an immediate food shortage. Tea production suffered, and exports fell. Then the Ukraine war sent oil beyond US$ 100 a barrel, which was the last straw. The central bank supplied over US$ 2 billion in the past 12 months to import essential items. But eventually, they all ran out of runway. And we got here.Of course, Sri Lanka's historical structural weakness is a factor to blame for its troubles. But you cannot take away the hubris of strong man decision-making that aggravated its situation in the last three years. Policy-making requires debates, scenario planning, anticipating the consequences and above all, strong institutions to take an independent, objective view of decisions. Bypassing them and going by instinct might seem like strong leadership, but the odds are stacked against good outcomes coming from them. Matsyanyaaya: Ignorance Breeds BiasBig fish eating small fish = Foreign Policy in action— Pranay KotasthaneWhen our level of understanding of another country is poor, we resort to cognitive shortcuts to make sense of the news coming from there. We interpret happenings in a way that reaffirms our current fears, hopes, and anxieties.While parsing information about a stronger adversary, we start with a sense of awe. When a weaker adversary makes it to the headlines, we start from a position of derision. Similarly, when we interpret information from a stronger ally, we amplify news that shows us in good light with respect to the ally. As for a weaker ally, our starting point is self-aggrandisement.Excessive reliance on these cognitive blinkers indicates that we don’t know enough about another country. And since we don’t know enough, we cannot differentiate between trash takes and informed opinions, rumours and facts, and between motivated actions and serendipity. It is easy to see these blinkers in action on social media discussions on Indian foreign policy issues.Take, for instance, what happened in the US earlier this week. House Rep Ro Khanna proposed an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act 2023. Amongst other things, the amendment had these lines: While India faces immediate needs to maintain its heavily Russian-built weapons systems, a waiver to sanctions under the Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act during this transition period is in the best interests of the United States and the United States-India defense partnership to deter aggressors in light of Russia and China’s close partnership.The House passed the amendment. Immediately, Indian media and commentariat pronounced that the US had given India a CAATSA waiver. My first reaction was no different. I realised later that this amendment only urges the Biden administration to provide India with a CAATSA waiver since the authority to take this decision lies with the executive branch. Unsurprisingly, there’s not a single mention of this amendment in the top American newspapers (I checked WSJ, WaPo, and NYT). Still, we had already given ourselves a strategically autonomous pat-on-the-back here in India. There are several other instances as well. In Feb 2018, a 26-member committee of the Pakistani Senate passed a resolution for the promotion of the Chinese language in Pakistan. Within minutes, Indian media was reporting that Pakistan has made Mandarin an official language of Pakistan! Someone just picked up a piece of bad news reporting from a Pakistani YouTube channel and assumed the worst. The sense of ridicule was almost instantaneous, and few stopped to consider how the official language of a State could be decided by a Senate Committee consisting of 20-odd members?Of course, these cognitive shortcuts are the easiest to find in Indian discussions on China. Because we understand so little about its culture, language, and politics, we almost always solely rely on our preconceived notions. So, we are absolutely confident that the Sri Lankan economy faltered only because of China’s debt-trap diplomacy, that China’s already deployed AI for advanced decision-making in military systems, or that China’s social credit system is a real-life incarnation of the Black Mirror episode, Nosedive. The reality is quite different, but these narratives occupy prime positions in our discourse. Can we train ourselves to not succumb to these cognitive shortcuts? Perhaps. Political Scientist Yiqin Fu has a really good solution set in the context of poor understanding of China in the US. She proposes four ways out:Tying more of one’s payoffs to what is happening in the target country as opposed to how news from the target country makes you feel would incentive you to form more accurate beliefs. Participating in online prediction markets or having some exposure to the target country’s financial markets would be a concrete example.The ultimate solution is to expand your knowledge.. as you can so that you are qualified to judge a wider pool of sellers (commentators).. A realistic approach could be talking to friends or following people with different skill profiles. Together you would be capable of evaluating commentary on a broader set of issues.Give more weight to commentary that uses systematic evidence… where applicable, the quality of commentary that cites systematic evidence is generally superior to those that do not.People on the knowledge frontier of any given issue bear special responsibility to amplify analyses they find reasonable, including those that reach conclusions they disagree with. On issues at the intersection of many niche areas, the average consumer has no way of distinguishing between analyses that are “reasonable but different from mine” and those that “rely on complete falsehoods.” So experts ought to share all commentary they find reasonable, regardless of how much they agree with the conclusion. As a footnote, its useful to consider that the “CAATSA has been waived off” cognitive shortcut indicates one of two things:some of us are intuitively assuming that US domestic politics has a better appreciation of India’s worldview. And hence, we are ready to jump to the conclusion that the US has already waived off these sanctions. We are seeing what we want to see. Given the chequered past of the US-India relationship, even this mistaken assumption is a positive sign.However, I think most people are intuitively assuming that India is entitled to a waiver. A lot of Indians are convinced that the US cannot counter China without India on its side. And so, they interpreted the CAATSA amendment news as a reaffirmation of India’s global importance.It is also interesting to consider if these mistaken assumptions will impact the Biden administration’s calculus on the waiver. Since many Indians are already convinced that India has got a CAATSA waiver, can it now afford to impose sanctions? The answer, of course, depends on a whole lot of other factors. Nevertheless, our cognitive shortcuts about another country reveal a lot about ourselves. Course Advertisement: Admissions for the Sept 2022 cohort of Takshashila’s Graduate Certificate in Public Policy programme are now open! Apply by 23rd July for a 10% early bird scholarship. Visit this link to apply.A Framework a Week: Things Governments DoTools for thinking public policy— Pranay Kotasthane(This post was first published in March 2018 on Indian National Interest)A typology of government actions can be extremely helpful. Faced with a policy problem, such a typology can serve as a menu of actions that governments can respond with. Various policy solutions can then be seen in this comparative framework:might action X be the better way to solve this policy problem?why would the government employ action X over other actions?what are the disadvantages of using action X over other actions?Surprisingly, I came across only a few typologies of government actions. One by Michael O’Hare and the other by Eugene Bardach.O’Hare’s 1989 paper A Typology of Government Action says: all legitimate government behaviour can be classified in eight classes.Note how this classification does not include things like laws, rules, and procedures — actions that we associate most commonly with a government. The reason is that these three are methods to implement the chosen government action. As such, a law can be a chosen method for many government actions: to prohibit (example: Prohibition of Child Marriage Act, 2006), to tax (example: Income Tax Act, 1961) and to subsidise (example: the Hajj Committee Act, 1959).Eugene Bardach’s typology in A Practical Guide for Policy Analysis is the second one I came across. It classifies government actions into these categories:1. Taxes (add, abolish, change rates, tax an externality)2. Regulation (entry, exit, output, price, and service levels)3. Subsidies and Grants (add, abolish, change formula)4. Service Provision (add, expand, organise outreach, reduce transaction costs)5. Agency budgets (add, cut, hold to last year’s level)6. Information (require disclosure, govt rating, standardise display)7. Structure of Private Rights (contract rights, liability duties, corporate law)8. Framework of Economic Activity (control/decontrol prices, wages, and profits) 9. Education and Consultation (Change values, upgrade skills, warn of hazards) 10. Financing and Contracting (leasing, redesigning bidding systems, dismantle PSU) 11. Bureaucratic and Political ReformsHomeWorkReading and listening recommendations on public policy matters[Article] Ajay Shah on improving resilience against extreme surges in demand.[Blog] Noah Smith has an excellent post on the Sri Lankan economic crisis.[Book] Carrots, Sticks and Sermons — another useful classification of policy instruments This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit publicpolicy.substack.com
In our last episode of CharityVillage Connects, which explored alternative revenue streams for nonprofits, we touched on a piece of legislation that, if enacted, could have a dramatic impact on how charities do their work. Bill S-216, otherwise known as the Effective and Accountable Charities Act, seeks to amend the Income Tax Act to empower charities by allowing them to more effectively collaborate with a wider range of organizations, including those without charitable status, which the Act refers to as “non-qualified donees”. Proponents of the Bill say the amendments are necessary to get rid of burdensome and expensive redtape and outdated legal bureaucracy. But the key shift proposed by Bill S-216 is much more aspirational: to eliminate the deeply-rooted and historic paternalism that many see embedded in the current rules about how charities can operate. In this episode, we speak with Senator Ratna Omidvar, sponsor of Bill S-216, and with other nonprofit sector experts to explore the pros and cons of this legislation, as well as the deeper implications of what it means for Canadian charitable organizations if it becomes law.Meet Our Guests in Order of Appearance · The Honourable Ratna Omidvar, Senator for Ontario, The Senate of Canada· Susan Manwaring, Partner at Miller Thomson LLP· Cathy Taylor, Executive Director of the Ontario Nonprofit Network· Mark Blumberg, Partner at Blumberg Segal LLP· Bill Mintram, Director Indigenous and Northern Relations at Rideau Hall Foundation· Kris Archie, Chief Executive Officer of The Circle on Philanthropy and Aboriginal Peoples in Canada (The Circle) About your HostMary Barroll, president of CharityVillage, is an online business executive and lawyer with a background in media, technology and IP law. A former CBC journalist and independent TV producer, in 2013 she was appointed General Counsel & VP Media Affairs at CharityVillage.com, Canada's largest job portal for charities and not for profits in Canada, and then President in 2021. Mary is also President of sister company, TalentEgg.ca, Canada's No.1, award-winning job board and online career resource that connects top employers with top students and grads.Resources from this EpisodeWe've gathered the resources from this episode into one helpful list:· Bill S-216: The Effective and Accountable Charities Act· Speech on Bill S-216 (The Honourable Ratna Omidvar)· Open Letter by Charity Lawyers in Support of Bill S-216· Unfunded: Black Communities Overlooked by Canadian Philanthropy (Foundation for Black Communities)· Canadian charities giving to Indigenous Charities and Qualified Donees – 2018 (Canadian Charity Law)· Concerns about Bill S-216 (Mark Blumberg)· Orange Shirt Day· Budget 2022 (Government of Canada News Release)· Nonprofits brief MPs on impact of key legislation (Imagine Canada)· Bill introduced in House of Commons to remove ‘direction and control' (The Philanthropist)· The new qualifying disbursements rules: An improvement? (Miller Thomson LLP)Learn more and listen to the full interviews with the guests here.
FREE report 7 Simple Steps to Becoming Your Own Banker – http://7steps.ca/ Wealth Without Bay Street EPISODE 117: Joining us today is Henry Wong to talk about taxation on your business that may happen after you're gone. Henry is a professional CPA and trains other CPA's across Canada specialising in taxation and passing through the nationals exams. He chanced upon the book “Becoming Your Own Banker” and began to piece together all his knowledge of life insurance and financial accounting and soon began to pursue the journey of becoming his own banker. Henry now trains others as an accountant in how to build their own personal capital pool and manage their taxation through IBC. IN THIS EPISODE, YOU WILL LEARN: 0:00 Introduction 2:04 Something to Think About as a Business Owner 5:18 Second Death and Income Tax Act in Canada 7:46 What is the Deemed Disposition 11:33 How Can This Affect the Business 15:52 Capital Flow of a Business 19:03 Levels of Taxes and Extracting Tax 22:36 Value of The Business Owner 24:44 Working Together With the CPA 28:38 Estate Planning and Deemed Disposition 37:33 Wind-up and Carry Back 39:48 Pipeline Restructure 44:17 Working With a Good Team 47:08 Succession Planning 50:01 Utilizing Term Insurance 56:17 Need For Insurance 1:01:21 What's Best For You and Your Business
FREE report 7 Simple Steps to Becoming Your Own Banker - http://7steps.ca/ Wealth Without Bay Street EPISODE 117: Joining us today is Henry Wong to talk about taxation on your business that may happen after you're gone. Henry is a professional CPA and trains other CPA's across Canada specialising in taxation and passing through the nationals exams. He chanced upon the book “Becoming Your Own Banker” and began to piece together all his knowledge of life insurance and financial accounting and soon began to pursue the journey of becoming his own banker. Henry now trains others as an accountant in how to build their own personal capital pool and manage their taxation through IBC. IN THIS EPISODE, YOU WILL LEARN: 0:00 Introduction 2:04 Something to Think About as a Business Owner 5:18 Second Death and Income Tax Act in Canada 7:46 What is the Deemed Disposition 11:33 How Can This Affect the Business 15:52 Capital Flow of a Business 19:03 Levels of Taxes and Extracting Tax 22:36 Value of The Business Owner 24:44 Working Together With the CPA 28:38 Estate Planning and Deemed Disposition 37:33 Wind-up and Carry Back 39:48 Pipeline Restructure 44:17 Working With a Good Team 47:08 Succession Planning 50:01 Utilizing Term Insurance 56:17 Need For Insurance 1:01:21 What's Best For You and Your Business
In this episodeIn our first CharityVillage Connects episode we explored how COVID-19 forced organizations to quickly rethink their traditional fundraising initiatives, such as in-person events and galas. In this episode, we carry the conversation further by considering the dramatic shifts currently taking place in Canadian nonprofit funding models and revenue sources, including social enterprise, so-called “patient” loans, and impact investing. In addition to discussing how these initiatives can help support administration costs and capacity building, we look at the chilling effect of the WeCharity scandal on nonprofit organizations' willingness to embrace these new models.Join our host, CharityVillage President Mary Barroll, as she speaks to sector experts about the risks and rewards that Canadian charities and nonprofits must think about as they look to diversify their revenue and engage in alternative funding models. Meet our guests in order of appearance Kristy Rivait, Co-Founder of Scale Collaborative Elisa Birnbaum, Publisher & Editor-in-Chief of SEE Change Magazine Dan Kershaw, Executive Director of Furniture Bank Mark Blumberg, Partner at Blumberg Segal LLP The Honourable Ratna Omidvar, Senator for Ontario, The Senate of Canada About your hostMary Barroll, president of CharityVillage, is an online business executive and lawyer with a background in media, technology and IP law. A former CBC journalist and independent TV producer, in 2013 she was appointed General Counsel & VP Media Affairs at CharityVillage.com, Canada's largest job portal for charities and not for profits in Canada, and then President in 2021. Mary is also President of sister company, TalentEgg.ca, Canada's No.1, award-winning job board and online career resource that connects top employers with top students and grads.Resources from this EpisodeWe've gathered the resources from this episode into one helpful list: CharityVillage Connects: Post-Pandemic Fundraising and Beyond Catalyst for Change: A Roadmap to a Stronger Charitable Sector (Senate Canada) Thrive Impact Fund Bill S-216: An Act to amend the Income Tax Act (use of resources of a registered charity) August 2021 Sector Monitor (Imagine Canada) Learn more and listen to the full interviews with the guests here.
Trudeau's government censorship panel says, because of that, we are not legally a, quote, “qualified Canadian journalism organization” — or QCJO as they call it. That's a special legal term they've come up with. As the words plainly mean, it's government journalism accreditation. It's a government journalism licence. So, not only does that mean we're not allowed to attend government press conferences, it also punishes us under Income Tax Act. GUEST: Sheila Gunn Reid on the cross-examination of Alberta's Chief Medical Officer of Health, Dr. Deena Hinshaw.
The government in the Union Budget for 2022-23 introduced new provisions aimed at taxing and tracking Virtual Digital Assets. Along with the framework for taxation, the Budget for the first time defined virtual digital assets. The Finance Bill has defined virtual digital assets in the newly-inserted clause (47A) under Section 2 of the Income Tax Act, 1961. Regardless of the nomenclature uses, VDA has been defined to mean any information or code or number or token generated through cryptographic means or otherwise. And which can be transferred, stored or traded electronically. Apart from the above three criteria, one of the following two conditions needs to be fulfilled to qualify as a VDA. The definition of VDA also specifically includes non-fungible token, i.e. NFT, or any other token of similar nature, by whatever name is called. The definition of NFT will be specified by notification by the Central Government. Generally speaking, an NFT is a digital asset that exists on a blockchain, allowing anyone to verify its authenticity and who owns it. Digital art, images, videos, text, music and even virtual real estate and in-game items can be bought and sold as NFTs. The Finance Bill also authorises the government to specify any other digital asset as a VDA or exclude any digital asset from the definition of VDA. Notably, Indian currency and foreign currency as defined under the Foreign Exchange Management Act, 1999, have been excluded from the ambit of VDAs. While VDA includes cryptocurrencies, the definition can cover a wide variety of digital assets which is implied by the wording ‘or otherwise' in the phrase “generated through cryptographic means or otherwise”. The definition is also made exhaustive with the words ‘information', ‘code', ‘number'. Because of the broad definition, VDAs can potentially include vouchers, reward points issued by shopping sites or credit card companies, airline miles etc. Experts have sought clarifications from the government. They fear the scope of VDA may impact digital assets created by companies. Watch video
Gaurav Karnik tells Vandana Ramnani that there is a need to hike the Rs 2 lakh tax rebate on housing loan interest rates under Section 24 of the Income Tax Act to at least Rs 5 lakh. If that happens, then you may see more people wanting to buy houses because it will then become more viable to do so. With more money in their hands, buyers would be in a better position to service the loan, he explains. There may also be something for people who want to or have already put their house on rent as the focus of the Budget is expected to be on Housing for All. He also talks about the need to relook at the definition of affordable housing to extend the benefit of additional deductions to more buyers. Rs 45 lakh may be a good definition for affordable housing in smaller towns but not so in metros such as Delhi and Mumbai. This limit should be increased to up to Rs 1 crore, he signs off.
December 31, 2021 - the extended due date for individuals to file income tax returns for the assessment year 2021-22 – has just passed by. Despite several requests from individuals and chartered accountants' associations for another extension, finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman ruled out any further extension. During the last few days, many complained that they were not able to access the income tax return e-filing portal or faced glitches in the final hours of the December 31 deadline. Those who failed to file income tax returns on time will now have to file a belated return under section 139 (4) of the Income Tax Act, 1961 before March 31, 2022. While you can exercise this option, it comes with a cost. For one, you will have to shell out a penalty of Rs 5,000 for delayed return filing. This amount is restricted to Rs 1,000 if your income is less than Rs 5 lakh. Also, you wil not be entitled to interest on tax refund due, if any. Moreover, you will not be able to carry forward or set off any losses incurred in financial year 2020-21. Also, those who completed the exercise before December 31 should not forget to verify the income tax returns filed. You have a window of 120 days from the date of having filed the returns to do so, without which, your returns will not be considered valid. You can either do it through the traditional, physical route or the electronic modes. Tune into Simply Save for insights from Preeti Khurana, Director, Regulation and Advocacy, Clear on consequences of not filing return before due date and the process for filing a belated return in such cases.
The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) kept the key policy rates unchanged last month. It helped the banks to keep the interest rates on home loans low. Some lenders even went on to slash it further to support the ongoing recovery. Housing Development Finance Corporation, or HDFC, India's largest housing finance company, is offering home loans at interest rates starting at 6.7% to new applicants, regardless of the loan amount or employment category. It has joined State Bank of India and Kotak Mahindra Bank in bringing down the home loan rates in the recent months. Kotak Mahindra Bank is offering a rate of 6.55% per annum for a limited period, while SBI is offering home loans starting at 6.7%. Home loan interest rates slipped below 7% last year. A big factor that decides the interest rate is the credit score of the borrower. For example, HDFC is offering its special rate to those who have a credit score of 750 and above. Other factors include the homebuyer's age and income. HDFC Managing Director Renu Sud Karnad has said that record low interest rates, government subsidies and tax benefits have helped homebuyers. The interest rates have fallen on the back of the Reserve Bank of India's liquidity infusion measures to support growth and credit uptake after the pandemic battered the economy. For now, the home loan rates seem to have bottomed out. However, customers need to keep a few more things in mind before they decide to buy a house in the current scenario. In most home loans, the interest rate is linked to an external benchmark, generally the Reserve Bank of India's repo rate. Therefore, customers will not be able to lock in at the current rock-bottom rates. The EMIs will rise as the repo rate is hiked. The repo rate was kept unchanged at a record low of 4% in the last monetary policy announcement. One can also opt for fixed interest rate to insulate their cash outflows from market fluctuation. But the interest rates are a tad higher in it as compared to floating rates. Experts believe that the central bank may hike interest rates in the first half of 2022. RBI is also expected to slowly roll back its accommodative policies that have facilitated easy liquidity conditions. It all may lead to a hike in the interest rates. Homebuyers should also consider the cost of down payment, stamp duty, registration fee and property tax. In Noida, a stamp duty of 7% is levied on the total cost of the apartment one purchases. And the registration charge is 1%. These rates are different in every state. Of course, buyers can claim a deduction of up to Rs 1.5 lakh for principal repayment under Section 80C of the Income Tax Act. In addition to this, a deduction of up to Rs 2lakh can be availed of on the interest payment under Section 24B. Borrowers should also look at loan-related charges like the processing fee, administrative fee, prepayment charges, conversion charges, legal fees and inspection fees before making the big move. Buyers should try to limit their EMI to 25% of their monthly earnings. And experts say that they should invest in ready-to-move projects as it will save them the rent. And it will also protect their interest, as several projects continue to be delayed by several years. Watch video
On this episode of In Conversation With Friedlan Law find out about the recent decision of the Federal Court of Appeal in Canada and Colitto. The decision of the Federal Court of Appeal overturned the decision of the Tax Court and the victory of the taxpayer. The central question of this case is when an assessment under paragraph 227.1 sub one of the Income Tax Act, which relates to directors liability, crystallizes, such that it can give rise to a derivative assessment under Section 160. “This in my view was a case where the proper result would have been for the Federal Court of Appeal to simply apply the text as written” - Phil Timestamps: 0.55 - Adam covers a brief review of the facts from the case 4.52 - Disagreement from the Federal Court of Appeal 7.42 - Hear Adam and Phil's analysis of the case 14.02 - Final comments on the case Resources: • >>>Read The Friedlan Law Blog - https://www.friedlanlaw.com/blog/ • >>>Find a copy of our article form commentary - https://www.friedlanlaw.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/1-2020-TOM-Vol20No3-Jul2020.pdf • >>>Click here to review the case - https://www.canlii.org/en/ca/fca/doc/2020/2020fca70/2020fca70.html?autocompleteStr=2020%20FCA%2070&autocompletePos=1 Connect with Friedlan Law: • >>>Find out more about Friedlan Law at their website - https://www.friedlanlaw.com/ • >>>Connect with Friedlan Law on Linkedin - https://www.linkedin.com/company/friedlan-law?trk=public_profile_topcard_current_company
Canadian Member of Parliament Larry Maguire sat down to talk to Chrissy Wozniak about his Private Member's Bill C-208, which has passed all three readings in the house. Bill C-208 is an Act to amend the Income Tax Act which addresses the transfer of a family farm, small business or fishing corporation. In the final reading of this bill, it received bipartisan support from 19 members of the liberal opposition. Of those who did not support the bill were Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, and the Minister of Agriculture. With the passage of C-208, parents will no longer have to be given a false choice of having to choose between a larger retirement package by selling to a stranger, or a massive tax bill because they sold to a family member – their own child or grandchild.The Women in Agribusiness (WIA) Summit annually convenes over 800 of the country's female agribusiness decision-makers. The 2022 WIA Summit, September 26-28 in Dallas, TX includes presentations from Cargill's Corporate Senior Vice President, Animal Health & Nutrition, Ruth Kimmelshue; Marco Orioli, VP of Global Grain & Processing for EMEA, CHS; and Brooke Appleton of the NCGA. Learn more at https://agr.fyi/wia_register. FIRA USA 18-20 OCT. 2022 (FRESNO-CA): The only 3-day event dedicated to the California and North America market for autonomous agriculture and agricultural robotics solutions.Learn More at https://agr.fyi/fira