True Patriot Love - April 26, 2026


What Most Canadians Get Wrong About Taxes ft. Luigi De Rose


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51 minutes

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00:00:00.000 But I always tell my clients, and I do this for myself, is get ahead of the game.
00:00:05.740 Make your contribution now for next year.
00:00:08.340 Why scramble on February 28th or the 60th day after the year end to get that tax return or that contribution made?
00:00:16.340 Make it early.
00:00:21.460 Welcome, everyone, to True Patriot Love.
00:00:23.700 Today, I'm lucky enough to have Luigi DeRose from PwC.
00:00:28.720 He's a tax partner.
00:00:30.000 and i know this time of year everyone's starting to struggle with their income tax and even
00:00:35.520 recently i was reading an article luigi and fortune uh printed it and came up with it and
00:00:41.680 they basically said one in four gen x taxpayers consider therapy during tax time okay so see what
00:00:50.080 you're doing yeah and not you welcome so the government's doing it the government's doing it
00:00:55.280 Yeah. Thank you. You're just helping. And that was actually part of the cure was actually getting a professional to help them with their income tax. And the number one thing I thought it was interesting because these are these are 20 year olds. You know, God love them. I remember those days. These are 20 year olds who are working in the gig economy. They're working multiple jobs. They have side hustles. When it gets to tax time, they have all these different machinations. They have contracts. They have employment income. They have contracting.
00:01:25.180 income and they're trying to figure it all out they even have crypto investments right which
00:01:30.560 is complicating the heck out of their lives yeah god love it so you know they have all these fears
00:01:35.920 and i thought it was interesting their number one fear is making a mistake which that's kind of odd
00:01:42.500 you know i stick on what their tax filing their taxes yeah yeah that's the number one fear which
00:01:46.360 i thought i don't know if i ever had a fear of making a mistake on my taxes right yeah i mean
00:01:51.420 know, maybe I did. I don't remember it. But 33% of Gen X is that's their worst fear and 27% of
00:01:58.340 millennials. So it is a, you know, it's definitely a fear for people. It gets less as people get
00:02:04.100 older, of course. And then their next fear is worry about scams and data exposure. So they worry
00:02:10.720 that their taxes are going to be provided to someone else. They're going to get caught in a
00:02:16.020 tax scam and then finally uh i think this is the biggest fear for all of us uh fearing owing more
00:02:22.300 money than you can afford right because if if you have your own business or you're working a side
00:02:27.280 hustle you know quite frankly did you put enough tax aside to pay your tax bill at tax time right
00:02:32.900 which i know myself when i started my own business you know allocating funds and setting aside money
00:02:39.260 was you know was one of the biggest challenges right because you want to double down on what
00:02:44.280 doing yeah people want to spend the money in the business to grow the business not not to pay taxes
00:02:48.360 that's for sure exactly so christoph who helped me with this today and thank you for your help
00:02:54.040 i said to him put together a list of key things that people worry about are concerned about ask
00:02:59.960 questions about and the first thing they came up with was uh upcoming filing deadlines so do you
00:03:07.320 share with us some of the deadlines and you know we can talk about what's coming up so everyone
00:03:13.080 knows what everyone should know about the april 30th personal filing tax deadline um your taxes
00:03:19.560 are due all of us as individuals in canada as taxpayers your taxes for the 2025 year are due
00:03:24.920 april 30th for those that are self-employed or who have a spouse that's self-employed
00:03:30.600 their tax returns aren't due till june 15th but if they owe money the tax is due by april 30th
00:03:37.240 and then the other one the other one i'll mention is corporate taxes if you have a business that's
00:03:41.400 incorporated. Those tax returns are due six months after the year end. So most businesses that have
00:03:48.540 December 31st year ends, the tax returns are due June 30th. So those are probably the three most
00:03:55.120 significant deadlines coming up in the short term. Tell me, so this, I got to ask you, because this
00:04:00.380 is, I lived this. So Luigi knows, you know, I didn't work for PwC, but I worked for another
00:04:07.000 of the big three accounting firms uh tax time in my life was brutal right so the amount of hours so
00:04:15.460 and you know i know working for working for one of the major accounting firms being in tax you're
00:04:20.520 probably not as stressed as i was but i was a kid i was in my mid early to mid 20s i was trying to
00:04:26.880 become a ca in those days we weren't called cpas um and we used to work man we used to work like
00:04:33.340 100 hours a week it was crazy the amount of hours we worked during tax time because we had all our
00:04:38.860 clients and all their kids and everyone flooding in is it's you know probably not as much because
00:04:44.620 it's now electronic but is it still as hectic as it used to be it's always hectic because um
00:04:51.580 you know i describe it as like the tax season is so short you get tax slips sometimes in early april
00:04:58.460 and the tax returns are due April 30th so it's such a constrained time period to get all your
00:05:04.220 clients tax returns done on time you're right with the advent of you know things being able to
00:05:09.500 do tax returns electronically AI helps us a lot nowadays in terms of assembling and inputting some
00:05:15.500 of that data so we do save some some time there but it's still like a hectic period of time I
00:05:23.420 always say if april was just doing tax returns in our business it would be fine the the issue is
00:05:28.940 that you have all your regular client work going on and now add personal tax season on top of that
00:05:34.700 so that's kind of what creates the the stress the the extra hours the extra pressure yeah do you
00:05:39.900 still hire so this is interesting and i always tell kids today i didn't i didn't stay in public
00:05:44.940 practice you know i became a manager and then i left you know you're a partner so you you know
00:05:50.700 made a career out of it um i i entered it and you know i was i did it uh kicking and screaming
00:05:57.980 so i think i've told you the story over lunch i became an accountant because my mother actually
00:06:03.500 when i graduated university used to get my mail i didn't live at at home and my mother used to
00:06:09.420 get my mail she opened my mail and she applied uh to accounting firms on your behalf i'm on behalf
00:06:16.540 i liked the job i had i had a i had a side gig i was uh i was loading trucks at canada packers
00:06:22.460 and i was making a ton of money yeah and my mom actually applied uh for me to actually go work
00:06:29.820 she wanted me to be a professional right right and god love her soul and so she applied for these jobs
00:06:35.180 and they would come back and she would set up my interviews and call me and say you better make
00:06:39.180 that interview or you're not coming back for dinner so you know because i used to see them
00:06:43.260 every sunday so she she made sure that i went to the interviews i went to the interviews i didn't
00:06:48.620 want the jobs but i got the the one company they hired me and quite frankly uh it was the best
00:06:55.180 thing that ever happened i was gonna say look at you now it's all the better for you yeah it was
00:06:58.780 it was terrific because it actually the you know for young people who want to get into business
00:07:03.580 and see a bunch of different businesses you know you get to see what you like what you don't like
00:07:09.180 businesses you get to work in and quite frankly you learn uh you learn a little about a lot early
00:07:15.180 in your career which is invaluable because then you get to use it uh you know the other day i
00:07:20.940 was on a show i was doing a podcast and monsanto canada came up um and i did the audit for monsanto
00:07:28.220 canada as i became a manager okay right and so the cool thing about that is i knew everything
00:07:33.820 like not everything i knew a lot about gmos you know and i knew a lot about that business i had
00:07:39.020 been in meetings with them i had learned about it as an audit manager and what they did fertilizer
00:07:44.140 i learned a lot about you know their business by doing the audit of it and it's cool how years
00:07:49.500 later you use that knowledge to come back and even podcasting yeah and then your financial you know
00:07:55.260 background now i gotta admit to you when i wrote my ufe's which for those of you who are an
00:08:00.780 accountants when in those days we used to have four hours four days of exams to become an accountant
00:08:06.700 when i wrote my eufies i skipped all the tax questions so you know and i skipped them and
00:08:11.820 left them to last every time and went back into them because that was my worst like yeah that
00:08:16.460 wasn't my strength right so so in the end you can tell but it did it did come back so you know help
00:08:25.260 me out a little bit because i'm going to jump in here so tax credits and deductions right any tips
00:08:32.780 that i can that you see people forgetting you know as they get into their tax season
00:08:39.820 yeah the biggest tip i'll suggest is um cra actually has a very useful online guide their
00:08:46.460 their t1 guide right it's actually very helpful in plain english deductions and credits that
00:08:53.580 you're able to claim on your personal tax return things that you don't think about things that
00:08:58.140 maybe haven't applied for you ever that maybe suddenly start applying uh given your stage in
00:09:02.860 life a common one that i see as as people age is the disability tax credit um as you know our
00:09:09.740 parents our family as we get older uh you're less mobile you may have uh issues walking you may have
00:09:15.900 issues um feeding yourself and whatnot so claiming a disability tax tax credit would be one thing that
00:09:23.100 i think you should be mindful of as you're preparing tax returns but there's a lot of
00:09:27.500 other ones medical expenses tuition credits rsp deductions first home savings account deductions
00:09:35.580 there's a plethora of deductions that are available to individuals a lot of times you
00:09:41.020 know you talked about the fear of preparing tax returns and overpaying tax it's because people
00:09:45.180 don't know that all these deductions are available so either hiring a professional
00:09:49.260 to do your tax returns, who's aware of these deductions, helps a lot.
00:09:53.620 And taking a look at the T1 guide if you're preparing your own tax return.
00:09:57.740 Like I said, CRA does have a useful guide that walks you through the credits,
00:10:01.520 the eligibility criteria, so that you can claim them appropriately
00:10:05.100 if you're doing your own tax returns.
00:10:06.600 Yeah.
00:10:07.840 The old paper day tax returns, are they still there?
00:10:11.300 Are they gone?
00:10:11.900 They're still there.
00:10:13.220 They're still there.
00:10:14.320 We don't see them in practice, obviously.
00:10:16.380 You can e-file tax returns now.
00:10:18.280 I think gone are the days where I remember when I started, too, you'd assemble a tax return, attach all the slips.
00:10:25.480 Sometimes it's a big, thick package, and you're carrying it to CRA, and then you're waiting for it to be assessed.
00:10:31.600 Now you can file your tax return instantaneously.
00:10:33.960 You get a confirmation instantaneously that the CRA has accepted your tax return.
00:10:39.160 And a lot of times, if you're filing early enough, you get your tax refund in the matter of a couple of weeks.
00:10:44.880 So, you know, I'll say things have become a lot more streamlined over the last number of years.
00:10:51.540 Yeah, thank goodness.
00:10:52.440 You know, it's funny when I think back in the old days, when I was a kid, like 13, my mother actually sat me down.
00:10:59.300 And my dad had trucks and he drove a truck.
00:11:01.940 And he used to have all the trucking logs for meal expenses and for mileage and everything on the trucks.
00:11:08.580 And we would sit at the kitchen table and she always did his books for his company and his finances.
00:11:14.320 and she would sit there and we would file this huge stack of papers with the actual physical
00:11:21.820 slips yeah and you know we'd we'd go and try to copy them somewhere and we'd sit there for hours
00:11:28.000 you know putting uh nickels in the photocopier you know we'd have this big stack yeah boy it's
00:11:35.120 changed so you know medical expenses which is an interesting one because i know you know with my
00:11:43.140 uh business and with my family and being an entrepreneur for most of my life it was one
00:11:48.360 of those ones that you know i had to kind of remember all the time that there were deductions
00:11:53.740 for people who work you know by themselves that aren't supported by a plan um you know and that's
00:12:01.000 one i missed all the time yeah and until i got a really good uh tax accountant you know like
00:12:06.520 yourself uh i was really never filing anything for my family or benefits so it's really good to
00:12:12.420 remember yeah for sure rsps so too late now right no i say it's never too late um it's too late to
00:12:21.220 to make a contribution now and claim a deduction on your 2025 tax return right uh because you have
00:12:27.120 60 days after the year end to make your contribution for the previous year um but i always tell my
00:12:33.640 clients and and i do this for myself is get a get ahead of the game right make your contribution now
00:12:39.180 for next year? Why scramble on February 28th or the 60th day after the year end to get that tax
00:12:46.240 return or that contribution made? Make it early. The money grows tax-free inside a RRSP account.
00:12:53.800 So if you make that contribution now, you've earned seven, eight months of tax-free growth,
00:12:59.680 as opposed to it sitting in a bank account and you're paying tax or not earning anything on it.
00:13:03.800 So I always say the sooner the better, get ahead of the game and not kind of scramble to make a
00:13:08.540 contribution at the last minute is there any and this is an interesting and probably not for a lot
00:13:13.560 of people but i i have heard you know i sat at dinner tables and had conversations with people
00:13:19.120 they say they don't do rsps and uh because they don't expect their uh tax bracket to change upon
00:13:25.640 retirement yeah probably an instance where you wouldn't do an rsp right you'd be looking for
00:13:30.920 another avenue there's so many different schools of thought on this and so there's like there's
00:13:35.480 not a right answer. You know, as you alluded to, I think a lot of people think, you know, you make
00:13:41.020 a, when you make an RRSP contribution, you get to claim a deduction against your taxes or reduces
00:13:45.760 your taxes and you make a contribution. When you withdraw the RRSP upon retirement, because it is
00:13:51.160 a registered retirement savings plan. So the idea, the goal is that you're saving, helping yourself
00:13:56.340 save for retirement. Now it's taxable as income. Right. So the conventional thinking was I'll make
00:14:02.220 less money then. So I get a deduction now at a higher tax bracket. I'll withdraw when I'm at a
00:14:07.220 lower tax bracket. If you're in the higher tax bracket, you don't have the tax leverage advantage
00:14:14.420 that you're alluding to. But think about all the years of tax-free compounded growth. So if you
00:14:20.340 don't put that money in RRSP, where are you putting it? You're putting it probably in a taxable
00:14:23.640 account. So you're paying tax over 10, 15, 20, 40 years, where it could be growing tax-free in RRSP,
00:14:30.100 you know getting 100 returns for yourself as opposed to half of it going to to the government
00:14:36.400 in taxes so there are people that kind of are you know disparage RSPs and I think there's a
00:14:43.320 negative connotation to them but there's a different school of thought where you know
00:14:48.120 you know especially as I said there's a lot of benefits in terms of the tax-free compounded
00:14:53.060 growth over x number of years yeah I think that's really the important part is you find yourself a
00:14:58.380 good investment advisor so on the investment side they can get you that growth right and that I
00:15:03.180 think uh you know and that's my dinner conversation all the time I say to them you have the wrong
00:15:07.520 investment advisor right so it's not the fact that you shouldn't do RSPs it's the fact quite
00:15:11.700 frankly that you got to get find someone who smartly invests your money to get you that growth
00:15:15.980 inside the absolutely it goes back to the previous question about when to make an RSP contribution
00:15:20.060 when people I find when people are scrambling to make it at the 11th hour they just park it in a
00:15:25.420 bank account inside their RRSP. So now it's not doing anything for you. Yeah. But if you make
00:15:29.480 it early enough and you hire a good investment advisor, you have a plan on how to invest that
00:15:34.060 contribution that'll grow for you. Yeah. Makes a big difference. I do remember that in my early
00:15:38.520 days when I used to do it and I was just scrambling all the time and then would sit there for years
00:15:42.440 not going anywhere. Not doing anything about it. Yeah. And then finally I said, you know, I got to
00:15:46.140 get someone in. Believe it or not, it ended up being a gentleman that I started with to become
00:15:54.720 an accountant yeah and him and i actually went through and wrote our eufy together and i found
00:15:59.240 him years later and he's an investment advisor he's doing really well okay and i said to him
00:16:03.480 whatever i do with this you got to make sure it grows so every year i sit down i have lunch with
00:16:07.820 them we review the portfolio we go through the performance you know he kind of sets a goal or
00:16:12.980 target for the upcoming year and thank goodness he's disciplined enough to track me track me down
00:16:18.540 make me go to lunch take me through it give me sort of a plan for the upcoming year so you have
00:16:24.320 to do that that's that's you really and that's important um who should be filing returns so this
00:16:32.780 is an interesting one you know when you look at you say okay people sometimes don't need to file
00:16:39.640 right and why not um yeah so a lot of people like think well i didn't make any money this year
00:16:47.260 or only made a few thousand dollars i'm not going to pay any taxes so why bother the aggravation as
00:16:53.860 we talked about, why bother paying an accountant to do a tax return when I know I don't owe any
00:16:58.360 money? And I say that's not necessarily the best way to look at it, because you're leaving money
00:17:04.840 on the table by not filing your tax return, even if you don't make a lot of money. Things like,
00:17:10.220 if you had employment income, even if it's a part-time job for students, there were source
00:17:15.420 withholdings. Well, because you maybe had a, you're in a lower tax bracket or above the threshold
00:17:21.700 where you even pay taxes that's tax money coming back to you right so why not claim it um and then
00:17:27.540 a lot of credits are um available only when you file a tax return so things like again low income
00:17:33.260 earners gst credit you know you've been hearing a lot about this grocery rebate the government's
00:17:37.700 talking about um that's available to low income earners only if they file their tax return so if
00:17:42.740 you don't file your tax return you don't get it the government doesn't know that you're a low
00:17:45.980 income earner that you're entitled to this credit uh for seniors uh who receive old age security
00:17:51.260 And in a lower bracket, there's a top-up payment called the Guaranteed Income Supplement.
00:17:56.200 That's only available if you file your tax return and CRA can assess that you are a low-income earner to be entitled to that credit.
00:18:03.580 So I would say, you know, you should probably, I don't want to say everyone should file a tax return, but almost everyone should file a tax return because you're leaving money on the table otherwise.
00:18:12.380 Right. And from a corporate perspective, right, definitely file because there's a penalty if you don't.
00:18:17.200 That's right.
00:18:17.520 And it's pretty substantial. I think it's like $1,000 a year or whatever.
00:18:21.260 Yeah, it's a pretty big, it depends on if you owe taxes, but just the fact that not filing a tax return, there are penalties for not doing so.
00:18:29.080 Yeah, yeah. I learned that the hard way when I first got into business, right?
00:18:32.600 I missed, I had a nil, I actually had a company, but it was just really inactive.
00:18:37.040 It was a nil company and I filed in late and I got hit with a thousand dollar penalty.
00:18:41.420 Depends if there's forms to file, like all those sorts of things.
00:18:43.660 Even if you don't pay tax with a corporation, there's other forms that are required to file.
00:18:47.640 So you can be assessed penalties for not filing those forms, even though you didn't own any tax.
00:18:50.780 Yeah. So I have an important reminder for sure.
00:18:54.620 TFSA versus an RRSP. Take me through, you know, always it's a question that comes up and I'm not the right one.
00:19:01.440 Yeah, it's a good academic question. And there's not a right answer.
00:19:06.340 I mean, what I tell people is if you have the money and you can afford it, do both.
00:19:10.220 Because the RRSP, as we said, you get a deduction and, you know, the goal of the RRSP is a retirement savings plan.
00:19:17.700 So there's one kind of purpose for the RRSP.
00:19:21.300 The tax-free savings account is different.
00:19:24.120 It's not necessarily meant for retirement, although you can use it for that as well.
00:19:28.320 I think about that a little bit more for short-term investment goals.
00:19:32.720 You're planning to buy a car in a few years or for younger people to pay for schooling or things like that.
00:19:40.660 That's kind of where the TFSA makes more sense.
00:19:43.100 The difference is that you don't get a deduction when you make a contribution to a TFSA, like you do for an RRSP.
00:19:48.920 And on the inverse, as we talked about earlier, when you withdraw from the RRSP, it's taxable.
00:19:54.720 When you withdraw from the tax-free savings account, it's tax-free.
00:19:59.080 So there's pros and cons to both.
00:20:02.160 And I think you have to look at what's your objective?
00:20:04.840 What are you trying to save for?
00:20:06.160 If it's retirement, probably the RRSP makes more sense.
00:20:08.700 If it's for a more shorter-term goal, probably the TFSA makes more sense.
00:20:12.820 But again, I don't think it's necessarily one or the other all times.
00:20:17.220 You have to look at your specific fact pattern and what makes the most sense for you.
00:20:23.120 Okay.
00:20:23.820 All right.
00:20:24.640 So you would do both if you could?
00:20:27.120 I would do both if you could.
00:20:28.500 Okay.
00:20:29.080 All right.
00:20:30.000 Tax records.
00:20:31.220 So now this is an interesting one.
00:20:32.860 So it used to be seven years.
00:20:34.420 so it's six years from the end of the year to which uh to which the uh income relates
00:20:43.000 okay okay and but practically seven right because if you think about the end of the year
00:20:49.480 right so 2019 filings you should keep until the end of 2025 okay so that's kind of you were now
00:20:56.520 in your seventh year when you can shred those records and then you can shred them and then
00:21:01.740 you're basically non-auditable after that okay so this is this is where it becomes tricky because
00:21:07.140 although there is a six-year record retention policy yeah that's from the end of the year
00:21:13.040 to which they are relevant so your tax return you can shred right but um and and tax slips for that
00:21:20.820 year you can shred but let's say you bought an investment 15 years ago a house rental property
00:21:27.680 even marketable securities if you still own it you have to keep the records to be able to prove
00:21:34.240 what you paid for it so it's only after six years after you sell it the year of which you sell it
00:21:40.320 that you can destroy the record the purchase records so if you you know if people bought
00:21:45.280 houses 50 60 years ago they should be retaining those records until they were you know they can
00:21:50.160 appropriately calculate capital gain and and pay tax on it on their tax return right so there's a
00:21:55.200 the cost data you need the cost data improvements anything like that uh you need proof of of that in
00:22:01.280 case cra asks to review those records so okay it's not as simple as saying you have to keep
00:22:05.600 them for six years i think there's certain things you keep for six years some things you have to
00:22:09.600 keep forever i definitely and i there that's where i do take uh after my mom i have a filing cabinet
00:22:15.120 with almost everything way back when in that that filing cabinet from my first filing which at some
00:22:21.040 some you probably don't need it's time right tax returns when you were 16 years old you can
00:22:25.440 probably shred but the amount of amount of times i move i should get rid of it yeah absolutely
00:22:29.920 purge purge records um anything you is there anything that you earn that is tax-free
00:22:36.960 okay so uh in canada there's not too much um you know there's there's very few things that
00:22:42.000 are tax-free but uh if you're lucky enough to win the lottery lottery earnings are tax-free
00:22:46.560 Well, I don't know about that. I think if it's a business, you're paying tax on it. So I wouldn't say gambling earnings are tax-free, but lottery earnings, a principal residence, if you have a gain when you sell your principal residence, that's tax-free, but you only get one principal residence.
00:23:06.680 people that have like a secondary home a cottage or something like that uh in addition to they
00:23:11.240 call it their city home only one of it can be tax free you're paying tax on the gain on the second
00:23:16.280 one um life insurance proceeds so you know unfortunately it's you know those pay out when
00:23:23.240 you pass away so you don't receive that money tax free but your estate or your trustees can receive
00:23:28.600 that money tax free and that's useful to pay uh to pay your debts your debts that are owing when
00:23:33.720 you when you pass away yeah um those are the main things that i would say are tax-free there's there's
00:23:38.360 not much else uh small business corporations on a sale could be tax-free but there's a whole bunch
00:23:44.120 of rules and around those that some some shares are tax-free some are not you have to do the full
00:23:49.160 analysis but um i would say those are the probably the four things that come to top of my mind that
00:23:55.000 would be tax-free in canada okay good capital gains let's talk about those from it so you know
00:24:01.880 now as you mentioned and this one was a big one and actually we did a show on it which i thought
00:24:07.240 with franco terrazzano he's the gentleman that actually filed a lawsuit against the government
00:24:13.800 because they were going to change the capital gains tax on investment income yep right and so
00:24:23.240 and that was after the fact just saying it it does need to go through the full steps before you enact
00:24:27.880 it it really uh i think it got settled out really quickly and i think it was just for to uh show the
00:24:34.680 government that they had to take more steps before they actually changed capital gains
00:24:38.600 but you know capital gains very interesting because right now there's always this debate you
00:24:44.440 know are we going to increase the rate on capital gains are we going to basically add more things
00:24:49.960 into the capital gains pool what's the scuttlebutt on capital gains right now is there anything like
00:24:56.440 happening with it uh the good news is no um i i think so what happened a few years ago is the uh
00:25:03.400 the trudeau government uh we're proposing to uh increase the inclusion rate on capital gains
00:25:09.960 from 50 to two-thirds and what that means is that you know for you know when you're in a
00:25:16.280 something like employment income interest income if you earn hundred dollars you pay tax on the
00:25:19.800 full hundred dollars but when you generate a capital gain from the sell sale of an investment
00:25:24.840 the sale of a property that's a capital asset, you only pay tax on 50% of the gain. So you make
00:25:32.980 $100, you only have to pay tax on $50. 50 of it is tax free. So they were proposing to increase
00:25:38.800 that inclusion rate to two thirds. So you'd pay tax on $66.67 of the $100 that you gain, which
00:25:46.800 would have been a significant tax increase. That created a big uproar amongst not only the
00:25:52.160 investment community but you know you think about uh you know people that had a cottage that they've
00:25:56.620 had for many many many years and to pay 50 tax instead of 60 or 50 inclusion rate instead of
00:26:02.760 two-thirds inclusion rate is a big difference so there's a lot of uh uproar about that good news is
00:26:09.140 the carny government said we're not doing that um so it's been shelved um hopefully forever uh but
00:26:15.360 at least it's been shelved it hasn't been postponed it's just off the table now oh which is good news
00:26:19.680 And I know dentists, doctors, they also went basically berserk when this happened, because when they go to transfer, sell their practice.
00:26:27.740 Yeah, that's right.
00:26:28.520 Okay, good.
00:26:29.400 And I guess you guys weren't happy either.
00:26:32.800 You guys as tax accountants?
00:26:34.540 Yeah, we weren't happy for ourselves, but we weren't happy for our clients as well.
00:26:41.860 We follow their lead.
00:26:43.220 Yeah, definitely. 0.94
00:26:43.740 uh now the one that pops its head you know and it's the ugly head are cra audits so and i always
00:26:51.820 ask this question i've i asked you every year i said what does trigger a cra audit
00:26:56.760 the short answer is uh there's not one thing um and uh frankly i don't know because i don't work
00:27:05.120 with with cra right or for cra so i don't know how they determine which individuals or which
00:27:10.320 businesses get audited um i think they do look for consistency so as an example if you've been
00:27:17.800 filing your tax returns for a number of years claiming a certain amount of deductions and
00:27:22.480 suddenly those deductions increase substantially or exponentially relative to your previous filings
00:27:27.900 i would think that's a red flag that says hey let's look into it um sometimes it's just uh
00:27:35.560 i hate to say a lottery but sometimes it's just like hey i haven't been on this individual this
00:27:40.060 company hasn't been audited for 20 years let's take a look um and sometimes a lot of times not
00:27:45.260 you know nothing comes out of that audit it's like you know Canada we we have a self-reporting system
00:27:50.840 right it's not as if someone sends me a bill here's how much you owe it's I prepare my tax return I
00:27:56.160 tell the government what I think I owe um so CRA has the right to go back and scrutinize and say
00:28:02.120 have you paid your fair share of tax um so yeah sometimes it's random sometimes they don't you
00:28:08.140 know you know they don't find anything in from an audit meaning that you don't know anything further
00:28:12.300 um so i don't know if that answers your question but it's there's not one thing but uh um i think
00:28:18.700 it's just consistency is important if they see a big spike or something maybe it looks a little
00:28:23.580 bit more aggressive they'll take a look i'm sure yeah yeah my in my experience you know since i
00:28:28.580 started my own businesses years ago is the stuff you know when i do get questions it really is on
00:28:33.580 a category so sometimes like oh it'll they'll pick it seems like they'll pick a category of
00:28:38.300 expenses and they'll just say hey tell me about what's in this category right which you know for
00:28:43.620 those of you who you know worry about it all the time it's fairly simple quite frankly you just
00:28:49.280 have to keep your records go back and and compile what made up that category and send it to them and
00:28:54.520 the more common ones that come up are in the categories is foreign tax credits so if you had
00:28:59.220 any foreign investment income they want to see that you pay tax in that foreign jurisdiction
00:29:03.900 medical expenses we talked about earlier they'll they'll review those especially in a year where
00:29:07.940 there's a big amount compared to prior years donations are the other ones they like to take
00:29:12.980 a look at you know show your tax receipts to them so yeah i don't really call those an audit they're
00:29:19.580 not like but they are an audit but as i said on a category so uh those as long as you keep your
00:29:24.760 records usually you have no problem you know the other thing i always tell people too is when you
00:29:29.320 get when you do get that letter right um and it's usually a fast timeline yeah like so it's usually
00:29:35.940 they say you know within so many days and unfortunately it comes through the mail so
00:29:39.840 let me get it you're like oh man i got like 10 days left right you know call so call the person
00:29:46.280 that's on that letter and talk to them you know i always do you know when i get that letter i just
00:29:50.520 call them and say hey you know i just got the letter i got 10 days left and they'll they'll
00:29:54.520 work with you usually they're really good my experience uh with the cra guys has always been
00:30:00.120 uh very cooperative very helpful um so you know i've always had good experiences
00:30:07.080 this is one i i put on the list and this is something that uh as you know i lived for many
00:30:12.440 years in the U.S. and then I came back to Canada. Tax residency was always kind of an issue that you
00:30:20.940 had to monitor and judge. Tell us a little bit about tax residency and when do you stop paying
00:30:29.280 taxes in Canada? When do you have to pay taxes? So take me through that. I know I have my own
00:30:34.780 opinion, but you're the expert. This is a really complicated question and not a straightforward
00:30:39.940 forward answer to it. So in Canada, our tax system is based on residency, not citizenship. So you
00:30:48.460 could be a Canadian citizen, living in a foreign country, but haven't worked in Canada, have no
00:30:53.920 income in Canada, have no property in Canada, but doesn't mean you're required to pay tax returns.
00:31:00.220 But as a tax resident, so if you live here, and we'll come back to kind of what that means,
00:31:05.780 you're subject to tax on your worldwide income.
00:31:08.620 So if you earned income in a foreign jurisdiction in the US,
00:31:12.640 some place in Europe, the common ones that we see,
00:31:15.560 even though you may pay tax in that foreign jurisdiction,
00:31:18.360 that income or that gain is taxable in Canada.
00:31:21.480 Canada has a great treaty network, tax treaty network,
00:31:24.160 so that you get to claim a tax credit generally for foreign taxes paid,
00:31:28.540 so you're not paying it twice.
00:31:29.740 But we are subject to tax on residency.
00:31:32.400 Right. When you cease residency is there's no fine line in the sand. It's and it's not a black and white answer. You know, a lot of times, you know, you look at that you look at things like where do you live? Where's your home? Where's your what's called your center of vital interests? Meaning where do you spend most of your time? Where do you you know, where is it that you you're part of clubs? Where is it that you have a driver's license?
00:31:59.140 So, you know, you look at all those sorts of indicators to say, well, I'm a resident in this jurisdiction versus this jurisdiction.
00:32:08.220 And you look at kind of the, you know, where the abundance of the facts are.
00:32:11.900 So it's, you know, where's the case stronger to say that you're a resident?
00:32:16.580 You talked about the U.S. and, you know, there are some states that there's no personal state tax, places like Florida and Texas as an example.
00:32:26.380 So if you think about, you know, some people will say, well, hey, I'm a resident in Florida because I don't want to pay tax in Canada.
00:32:35.440 It's not so simple.
00:32:36.560 You'd look at, well, where do you live?
00:32:38.520 Like where, you know, even though you might have a home in both jurisdictions, you have to look at those other tests as well.
00:32:44.100 Yeah.
00:32:44.700 Well, it's interesting, you know, and I was lucky enough, you know, I didn't give up my residency, of course.
00:32:50.860 um and uh it was interesting because i got down to florida and i went through two hurricanes
00:32:59.580 and you know it's funny you i thought when i got down i thought oh this is great no
00:33:04.620 no state tax you know i don't have all the tax issues that we have in canada then i went through
00:33:10.220 two seasons of hurricanes actually back to back uh went to oklahoma uh went through tornado alley
00:33:17.180 and i thought i'm not staying here either yeah you know and then a friend of mine recently said to me
00:33:21.740 you know i'm heading over to dubai and believe it or not just before this conflict in the middle east
00:33:27.900 uh in iran i was supposed to go on a vacation like literally like weeks before it broke out i was
00:33:33.420 supposed to be on a vacation with my wife in dubai with my son um and i canceled just out of i thought
00:33:39.260 this is getting a little hot i'm going to cancel i'm not going and uh you know he calls me up and
00:33:43.820 And he says, thank God you didn't come.
00:33:45.500 And the idea of actually coming here, you know, for a better tax scenario.
00:33:49.240 Yeah, you know, we complain about, as Canadians, we complain about the amount of tax that we pay.
00:33:52.800 But we get a lot of benefits here from our system.
00:33:56.780 Oh, we do.
00:33:57.520 And, yeah, some jurisdictions, you pay no tax.
00:34:00.180 Dubai, you mentioned.
00:34:01.100 But it's also not a democracy.
00:34:03.440 In Canada, we're a democracy.
00:34:05.200 Yes.
00:34:05.380 And so, you know, where do you value having a democracy, a right to vote, you know, a right to freedom of speech and whatnot,
00:34:13.060 relative to not paying any tax yeah well and and also we don't you know one thing i realized we
00:34:19.080 had tough winters yeah but knock on wood for the most part we don't get natural disasters and
00:34:24.340 and you know having lived around the world yeah i've seen that and so when i came back home that
00:34:29.260 was one of reasons family and also the fact that this is the the safest best place to live by far
00:34:36.160 and i think we don't sometimes we don't say it enough you know we get caught up in the day-to-day
00:34:40.420 you know what's going on in politics and what's going on in the world but yeah yeah so it is great
00:34:46.020 um you know so and you talked about this is an interesting one and you know i've i've looked at
00:34:53.220 it myself estate freezes so and and you know people people get to a point where they have to
00:35:00.020 start planning and it's tough right we don't want no one wants to think about the end of their life
00:35:04.900 they want to think about growing and adapting and flourishing but you know you have to at some point
00:35:09.540 sit down and say okay you know if i'm if i'm gonna do well and i want to leave some money to the
00:35:14.820 people how do i do that best so let's talk about estate freezes for a few minutes yeah so an estate
00:35:19.940 freeze is a simple concept uh but not necessarily simple to to execute um so if you think about what
00:35:26.580 the word freeze what it means is you're freezing the value of what you own so that the growth
00:35:34.020 from the date of the freeze onward goes to somebody else typically next generation right
00:35:39.700 how do you do that you know first of all you need a a corporation or some other vehicle that can be
00:35:46.900 frozen so if you just have a bunch of bank accounts brokerage accounts sitting under your
00:35:50.580 name you can't just say well i don't want to pay tax on any further growth from this point on like
00:35:54.500 that's you can't do an estate freeze like that right so it's either typically you freeze the
00:35:58.180 value of a business or investments that are in a corporation you can say okay well what's
00:36:04.420 what are my shares worth at a certain point in time and you typically go through a corporate
00:36:10.980 reorganization where you convert what are common shares into fixed value preferred shares that
00:36:16.420 don't grow in value and then the use a new individual or new entity like a family trust
00:36:24.020 subscribes for common shares that are the growth shares that grow from that point on and from that
00:36:29.780 point on the idea is that the growth goes to the next generation you know taxes and paid on that
00:36:35.940 growth when you die the freezer you only have to pay and plan for tax on your frozen preferred
00:36:42.580 shares so what that does is essentially allows you to plan how do i fund that tax liability on death
00:36:49.300 um you know you you can't escape it and so if you've done a freeze and at least you know the
00:36:55.140 value you can plan on how do i fund it through savings through life insurance
00:37:00.420 uh and and helps your affairs uh help put your affairs in a more organized manner so that your
00:37:07.780 beneficiaries and trustees aren't dealing with a a mess for lack of a better word on your passing
00:37:14.580 you know it's it's a shame so we had an unfortunate incident uh last summer a good friend of ours at
00:37:20.500 a very young age passed away i think i was mentioning that to you on the phone um and it's
00:37:25.940 so sad you know this is terrible and it for our family it was hard because we were really close
00:37:30.500 with them um but you know we we see his wife frequently and we love her to death you know
00:37:36.580 she's working a way through because he didn't have a will didn't do a lot of estate planning
00:37:42.180 and now she's kind of grinding away through the process and i didn't realize how hard it was but
00:37:46.660 we had lunch with her last week and she was just telling us the sequence of events that she's going
00:37:51.540 through and it's it's it's such a shame right that he but he didn't think of it right he was
00:37:57.460 too young to think about it you know my my dad and uh friends told me early on in my life when i
00:38:04.740 turned 40 start getting a will together start thinking about an estate plan it's never too
00:38:10.900 early i was going to say even 40 is probably too late okay because we've seen you know unfortunately
00:38:16.980 you know in yourself probably as well people that die earlier than that out of you know car accidents
00:38:23.540 whatnot so um you know unfortunately i have a client whose daughter passed away in her early
00:38:28.980 30s uh with without a will and so it created a mass with children um so dealing with who should
00:38:36.900 handle this individual's estate not that it was significant but there's some assets there who
00:38:42.020 takes custody of the children um all those sorts of issues without a will you potentially have some
00:38:50.500 some fighting amongst family members so having the will that you articulate here's what i want
00:38:56.740 to happen when i'm not here is super important um and i would say it's probably like the most
00:39:02.500 important document that everyone should have it just helps make sure your wishes are followed
00:39:08.900 through when you're not here right and it doesn't have to be a 50 page will if you're younger but
00:39:14.780 you need a will that deals with things like we talked about if you have small children who takes
00:39:18.960 custody who who are you giving authority to take control of your assets to deal with them as you
00:39:24.160 wish but super important document to have yeah well even you know honestly bank accounts where
00:39:30.800 all your investments are held it sounds you know it sounds uh you know crazy but quite frankly you
00:39:38.080 know there's a lot of things we don't talk you know we're busy everyone's busy it's not on purpose
00:39:42.320 for the most part for people but you know they don't think to share all that information or to
00:39:46.720 have it centralized or put in a safe or have uh have it in a lock box or a safety deposit box but
00:39:52.400 though you know again those are all the things that you should be doing and i know you do a lot
00:39:56.720 lot of work in this front right this is kind of from your firm's perspective at pwc you guys have
00:40:01.940 kind of you know it's not just tax accounting it's it's basically what's tax advisory yeah
00:40:09.360 advisory most significant part of our my practice and our practice yeah yeah you do mostly planning
00:40:14.280 right yeah since i've met you you know uh you know just planning people's lives and helping
00:40:19.900 them plan their business structures and where to go with it is a key component from the the onset
00:40:25.540 and it's money well you know sometimes you know you're like okay i i want to reinvest in this
00:40:30.340 business but okay great you know but you have to plan the business at the same time because you
00:40:36.660 know if you don't you can number one you might make all these wrong moves you have to go back
00:40:40.820 and try to fix um and quite frankly you want to maximize your profitability from the efforts
00:40:47.380 you're putting into it yeah i i view my job as a bit of a a bit of an educator for my clients
00:40:54.260 you talked about an estate freeze a few minutes ago i don't expect any client to come in and say
00:40:58.900 i want to do an estate freeze it's my job to advise them hey have you thought about this
00:41:04.660 here's what it is here's when it makes sense for for you to do it and here are the pros and cons
00:41:09.700 of it um because again this is not this is my business but this is not people's my client's
00:41:16.020 business they're busy running businesses or whatever it is that they do so i feel my job
00:41:21.700 is a bit of as a bit of an educator when it comes to canadian taxation the canadian tax system
00:41:26.740 things that they should be thinking about to put their affairs in order to in a way that um leaves
00:41:32.100 their assets the next generation in a organized manner but organized to pay the least amount of
00:41:38.180 tax that you need to pay right no one wants to overpay tax no heck no but we have a lot of
00:41:44.500 benefits right so you know tax evasion obviously is not good and we don't we don't propose that
00:41:49.220 but you are allowed to organize your fares to to pay the least amount of tax that that that you
00:41:55.300 are you need to yeah um corporation so let's talk about that for a minute because we're on
00:42:00.580 the corporate side of things you know uh definitely incorporate a business if you're
00:42:05.540 going into business and then second thing holding investments in a business so talk to me a little
00:42:10.980 bit about the benefits you know we all even why you incorporate for a minute and then we can go
00:42:16.420 on to the investment side yeah so um so in terms of a business so um as you mentioned it you know
00:42:23.460 it's almost automatic that you should be incorporating a business uh yeah because
00:42:28.820 you know from a tax reason alone um small businesses so meaning uh where they have taxable
00:42:34.820 income up to five hundred thousand dollars the combined federal ontario tax rates only about 12
00:42:40.500 percent so as an individual if you made five hundred thousand dollars up to five hundred thousand
00:42:46.100 dollars your tax rate goes up to fifty three and a half percent at over once you hit two hundred
00:42:51.220 fifty thousand dollars so massive tax differential earning income in a corporation versus uh versus
00:42:58.180 individually right um so there's a tax benefit i'm not a lawyer but but there are obviously legal
00:43:04.020 benefits too to being incorporated uh you know the the fact that a business is incorporated
00:43:09.540 should protect the shareholders from personal liability if there's a lawsuit or something like
00:43:14.180 that um whereas if you run a business your own you're potentially exposed to creditors
00:43:20.260 right yeah definitely so those i would say those are the some of the things to think about uh in
00:43:25.300 terms of incorporating not incorporating uh in terms of investments this one's a little bit more
00:43:30.260 not as black and white in my mind um most clients most of my clients um i would recommend that they
00:43:37.220 do incorporate their investments for different reasons. One, the tax rate is slightly less in a
00:43:44.400 corporation than it is personally. Investment income is taxed at just over 50% in a corporation.
00:43:50.460 As an individual, if you're in the top tax bracket, you're paying 53.5% tax. So there's a little bit
00:43:56.040 of a benefit there. There's also, we talked a little bit earlier about having assets outside
00:44:02.180 of Canada. In Canada, a lot of people have U.S. investments, whether it's marketable securities
00:44:07.780 or real estate or whatnot. The U.S. has an estate tax that's payable on death. And that's applicable
00:44:15.080 to Canadians too, potentially, because you are subject to U.S. tax, even if you're not an American.
00:44:22.460 Right. So having assets in a corporation can help with eliminating U.S. estate tax on those assets.
00:44:30.040 um so those are the main two reasons that i why i see a lot of clients incorporating their uh
00:44:37.620 their investments yeah just before and i want to get on to simplicity of tax for a minute but i'm
00:44:44.840 going to put any more strategies on the tax front we should be thinking about corporate or personal
00:44:49.900 that you want to kind of drop with us today i know yeah there we could spend another five hours
00:44:55.300 talking about this but the the one the one thing i think i'll i'll mention here is uh flow through
00:45:01.060 shares as a topic we hear a lot about that that gets a lot of uh profile and what that is is if
00:45:07.940 you know investing in a flow through share these are typically junior mining exploration companies
00:45:13.620 in canada that because they're the early stage of exploration they need a lot of money to do
00:45:19.780 do that exploration. But they don't need the tax write-offs because they have no income at that
00:45:25.740 point. So there's this product, if you want to call it that, where you as an investor can invest
00:45:33.560 in shares of that corporation that are specific and meet a bunch of rules in the Income Tax Act
00:45:38.360 that they can flow through those expenses essentially to you as an investor. So you get
00:45:45.360 immediate deduction for the investment in in that flow through share as opposed to just paying a
00:45:50.400 capital gain uh when you sell it um and so that helps on a on two fronts one it helps you reduce
00:45:57.440 your personal taxes if i can get immediate right off for a hundred thousand dollar investment but
00:46:01.520 it helps that company now they have that hundred thousand dollars to invest and explore and yeah
00:46:06.000 and and you know we hear a lot about critical minerals find those critical minerals that are
00:46:10.320 important part of the economy going forward right i never think about they know it's interesting we
00:46:15.200 We do tons of mining shows now, and this is one I'm probably going to have you back in for to talk about because this is a real key.
00:46:23.860 And it ties into the next thing, which is a really good segue.
00:46:27.060 I don't know if you knew your segue into this, but Australia.
00:46:31.700 So I'm going to compare for a minute.
00:46:33.940 So we took a look before the show, and we said, okay.
00:46:37.620 And many shows we do, we're looking at Australia right now because its productivity level is increasing so fast.
00:46:44.240 and Canada's has kind of stagnated.
00:46:46.620 So we see a country that right now GDP per capita is about 10,000 more than ours,
00:46:52.820 whereas a decade or so ago it was below ours.
00:46:56.220 Now it's extreme.
00:46:57.540 They've done some things to simplify their tax system.
00:47:02.060 Is there stuff in Canada right now?
00:47:04.280 And I really find this interesting because we're, and it's a shame,
00:47:11.460 We're kind of slipping out of the OECD, the developed country list of 32.
00:47:16.160 We're slipping out in productivity levels because we're just going down and down and people are growing.
00:47:22.480 So we see the U.S. growing.
00:47:23.880 We see the gap between us.
00:47:25.400 So we're seeing the productivity levels shift.
00:47:28.460 But when you look at the rankings for complexity of tax systems, we're number 13th in the world in the OECD.
00:47:36.180 So we're one of the more complex tax systems.
00:47:39.140 but yet we're finding is there ways that we can and this one the flow through shares is there
00:47:44.340 other ways that we can start to incentivize people reduce complexity so we can kind of get
00:47:51.160 that productivity back and and try to grow our country and i know the prime minister talks about
00:47:56.360 it quite a bit and you know it's a shame sometimes i know he's a really bright guy but you know more
00:48:02.060 details like this to explain to people what he's trying to do i think would be helpful to get
00:48:06.340 people on board uh to the to the what he's doing right yeah i mean this is my own opinion i'm not
00:48:13.180 like what i say is like not i'm not representing anybody here but just my own kind of observation
00:48:18.960 you know being a tax professional and doing this for like 30 years um is i think our personal tax
00:48:25.000 system can be simplified i think there's you know one of the first questions you asked me is about
00:48:29.080 tax deductions and credits why are there so many right i i'm a i'm a my my own view is i'm a bigger
00:48:35.760 proponent of uh increasing the exemption right now it's only about the approximately the first
00:48:41.920 sixteen thousand dollars of income that you can earn tax-free before you start paying a dollar
00:48:46.480 of tax right why not increase to that to something more meaningful and i don't know what that number
00:48:51.520 is but let's say thirty thousand thirty five thousand but do away with some of these credits
00:48:56.000 like the medical expense credit or you know there's credits for you know moving expenses
00:49:05.840 child care expenses whatnot may not be popular for me to say that but I think it just simplifies
00:49:12.920 the system you know why keep that big stack of medical expenses yeah just increase the exemption
00:49:18.780 and so just say okay you don't have to pay tax on x but don't worry about keeping all those records
00:49:23.720 Because at the end of the day, how significant of a savings is it going to be by claiming a few dollars of tax savings on medical expenses?
00:49:32.380 So that's my own opinion is there's too many credits and too many tax brackets that if I was prime minister, I would do away with a lot of that.
00:49:42.000 Which, you know, alleviates some of that anxiety you talked about when it comes to tax time.
00:49:48.100 Yeah, it's interesting.
00:49:48.940 So, you know, we took a look before the show and different countries, you know, they've done, you know, we looked at Switzerland, which is a smaller company, and we looked at New Zealand, you know, they kind of switched off to more of a flat tax structure.
00:50:05.160 And then Australia, which you just talked about, did an increase in their lower level of, you know, tax exempt income for people.
00:50:14.680 So it's really interesting.
00:50:15.800 That is a good suggestion.
00:50:16.980 I think we need to look at it now.
00:50:18.940 i think we're at that point if if we can find you know if we can find the simplest ways to free up
00:50:24.540 people's time become more productive so if i don't have to stress worry go out and and you know spend
00:50:31.340 time to uh like you said compile put together we can build more and i think that's what canadians
00:50:37.740 need to be doing now and i i hope uh you know for this show people listen uh recommendations going
00:50:43.980 forward uh very helpful you know before you go you know and i just wanted to to thank you for
00:50:51.260 coming in today but i also i know for people luigi as he said and i'm gonna i'm gonna sing
00:50:57.260 his praises for a minute probably one of the easiest guys to talk about tax with so you know
00:51:02.700 i've met a lot of attacks trust me i've met you know over a hundred tax accountants that i've had
00:51:07.660 drinks dinner lunch you name it he's very easy to talk to uh he has great ideas on tax planning
00:51:14.460 pwc is lucky to have him thank you um and i really appreciate you taking the time so thanks for having
00:51:20.380 me on the show yeah and you know so for those of you you know please keep him in mind when you're
00:51:25.500 doing your tax planning and also uh subscribe like and let us know uh what more you need to
00:51:32.620 know about tax because we're always really excited to have him back and have more shows so thank you