If we look back at recent history, we can all remember the global economic crisis of 2008. Of course, many of us know that this crisis was triggered by a bubble in residential housing propped up by the availability of sub-prime mortgages. The collapse of the housing market had such a widespread effect that there... Continue Reading →
In July of 2017, the federal government released proposals aimed at limiting opportunities for shareholders of privately held corporations to split income with family members. There was a significant backlash from both business and tax communities. Due to this backlash, the federal government amended their proposal and released the revised proposal in December 2017. The federal... Continue Reading →
The federal government made some interesting proposals for the treatment of certain taxable income for this year's federal budget. The draft summarizes the way passive investments held by small private corporations are to be treated. In this blog post we will cover a couple of important points for our farming and professional clients who are... Continue Reading →
On March 12, 2018, Manitoba Finance Minister Cameron Friesen tabled the province's fiscal 2018-2019 budget. The budget contains some factors that have potential implications for both individuals and corporations. It is important that you and your accounting and legal professionals are aware of these factors, so be sure to ask them about it. Measures for... Continue Reading →
The updated Federal budget was presented on Tuesday of this past week. There are a few changes from the originally proposed outline are important to keep in mind. The July 2017 proposals took a somewhat draconian approach to the receipt of passive income inside small corporations (interest, rental income, and dividends received). Any passive income generated... Continue Reading →
For those of us that tune into the financial news regularly, we know that our central banks - both in the US and in Canada - are a little more hawkish than they've been in the past few years. In simple terms, they're raising interest rates. Slowly. Generally, interest rates only increase when economic fundamentals... Continue Reading →
This week the mainstream press headlines were plastered with reports of an impending market correction. I saw this quotation a couple of weeks ago and thought it would be applicable to bring up here. Chief economist at First Trust Advisors, Brian Wesbury, has been referencing the present US recovery phase as a "plow horse economy"... Continue Reading →
Last week we talked about some of the negative aspects of rising interest rates. This week we will outline the positive economic impact of a rising interest rate. In an ideal world, reversion to a 6% bank lending rate would be healthy. Loan rates for business purposes would be around 6% interest and the corresponding... Continue Reading →
This past week, the Bank of Canada announced an increase in the BoC rate of 0.25%, causing the chartered banks to increase their prime rate to 3.45%. The chartered bank's prime interest rate is the basis for all retail lending. A familiar term is prime plus 2%. Prime plus 2% would mean the effective interest... Continue Reading →
