Hub Blogs

Hub Blogs contains fresh contributions written by Financial Independence Hub staff or contributors that have not appeared elsewhere first, or have been modified or customized for the Hub by the original blogger. In contrast, Top Blogs shows links to the best external financial blogs around the world.

Average Canadians stranded in storm of Liberal tax changes

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By Dave Faulkner, CLU, CFP

Special to the Financial Independence Hub

On July 18, 2017, the Liberal Government announced a significant set of tax proposals designed to close certain tax loopholes that can result in high-income individuals gaining tax advantages that are not available to most Canadians, these include:

  • The elimination of “income sprinkling” by paying dividends to family members that own shares in a business or holding company.
  • The curbing of “passive investment income,” by imposing additional taxes on money sitting in a corporate investment account.
  • The conversion of a corporation’s regular income into capital gains using legal tax strategies that have been around for decades.

In recent interviews, Finance Minister Bill Morneau said that average Canadian business owners need not worry about his proposals, because if you make less than $150,000 per year you will see no increase in taxes paid. He continues to state that he is going after only the wealthiest Canadians that use corporate tax loopholes to gain advantages over the hard-working middle class. It is important to note however, that what Bill Morneau refers to as tax loopholes are in fact legitimate tax planning strategies that have been available to all Canadians for many years.

To help sell these proposals proponents of the new tax have released simple spreadsheets illustrating the impact to an individual in Ontario earning $1.00 of business income who earns over $200,000 and pays tax at the top marginal rate of 53.53%. In other words, the wealthy 1%.

As a financial planner, I know first hand that most small business owners are not wealthy. They are hard working average Canadians who are struggling to build their business, often at the cost of not being able to make regular contributions to retirement plans. As a software designer, I know first hand that simple spreadsheets do not provide enough analysis to come to any meaningful conclusions, due to the complexity of our tax system. All they do is support the opinions of the author.

So, to help bring some meaningful analysis to the position that these proposed changes will not burden middle class business owners, Razor Logic Systems has deployed a temporary version of our financial planning software RazorPlan that addresses one aspect of these proposals, passive investment income. As the largest provider of financial planning software to independent Canadian financial advisors, upon request we will temporarily make this version available to any financial writers, bloggers, the media, and Minister Morneau.

Passive Investment Income

Currently, to eliminate double taxation, a portion of the income tax a CCPC pays on investment income is refundable. In Ontario, the combined Federal and Provincial tax rate is 50.17% made up of 19.5% non-refundable and 30.67% refundable only once the income is paid to the shareholder in the form of a dividend. This effectively ensures that the tax paid on $1.00 is the same regardless of where it originated. The tax proposal aims to eliminate the 30.67% refundable portion, claiming the low tax rate on active business income in a CCPC creates an advantage for individuals with a corporation compared to individuals who earn income personally. Continue Reading…

What rising interest rates mean for the stock market, and how to cope

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By Matthew Wilson

Special to the Financial Independence Hub

We’ve all seen the headlines: “Interest rates are on the rise.” The United States has raised rates three times since December and the Bank of Canada is now on the move after seven years of silence. Here’s what you need to know and how to prepare:

How high will rates go?

Before we start worrying about how this impacts our investments, let’s first look at how high we can expect them to go.

To do this we simply need to open the history books and look at (on average) how many times the Bank of Canada has raised interest rates when entering an increasing rate cycle. They never simply raise rates once and be done with it; they typically raise in a continuous cycle over the course of several years. Here’s what I mean:

  • 1999–2000: 4 rate hikes
  • 2002–2003: 5 rate hikes
  • 2004–2007: 10 rate hikes
  • 2010: 3 rate hikes

So, on average, whenever the Bank of Canada starts a cycle of raising interest rates we can expect to see approximately 5–6 increases.

It’s safe to say we won’t get back to the days of 16% interest rates as seen in the early 90’s, but we can expect to get back to the 3%–6% range that we saw throughout the early 2000’s.

Between 1990 and 2017 Canadian interest rates have averaged 5.92%, so as we currently sit at 0.75% we have quite a way to go. Here’s what I mean. Please refer to the graph that’s at the top of this blog.  As you can see we are just starting to come off the bottom: early days!

When do higher rates start to impact investments?

Just because interest rates are moving higher doesn’t necessarily mean bad news for the stock market, at least not yet.

Take the US for example. In their last four rate increase cycles they raised interest rates 10 times (on average) during each cycle. The US stock market (S&P 500) moved up an average of 23% during each of these cycles.

So, it’s not all doom and gloom, but there is a point at which we need to start getting concerned.

This tipping point typically comes once we get into the 4%–5% range. Why?Because as we near the end of a rising interest rate cycle it can start to slow down the economy in a number of different ways:

Firstly, it means higher borrowing costs for corporations and consumers, (i.e. higher mortgage rates, auto loan rates, lines of credit, etc). For corporations, this means less profit because they are spending more money on interest.

Secondly, it means more competition between bonds and equities. Right now you can get stock dividends paying a nice 4%–5%, but as bonds get up into this same range we start to see an outflow of cash from the equity markets and into the bond markets – seeing as bonds are incredibly less volatile, and if they are paying the same yield, people will naturally go with the less risky investment.

Essentially, bonds start competing with the equity markets, and with so many baby boomers retiring on fixed incomes they can’t afford the volatile swings of the stock market so they switch to bonds.

How long until we need to start worrying?

As mentioned above, markets don’t typically start to feel the impact of rising interest rates until we reach the 4%–5% range.

Continue Reading…

Are Investment Fees for suckers?

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By Chris Ambridge, Transcend

Special to the Financial Independence Hub

Providing a service costs money, but paying a fee deemed as an unnecessary amount has come under attack from consumers at all levels. Think banking fees, or the perception of “hidden fees” on phone bills to brokerage and investment fees. Consumers are demanding more value and in some cases winning the battle.

There is more scrutiny on fees than ever before. Studies have shown many investors either believe they do not pay anything or have no idea what they do pay (Hearts & Wallets: Wants & Pricing — What Investors Buy & Competitive Ratings — 2016).

But everyone understands nothing in life is free and clients have a right to know what they pay.

 The long-view of investment fees  

For centuries, if an ordinary person had any liquid wealth the best they could hope for was meagre interest on their cash. Then, as the concept of companies developed, the notion of profiting from an equity investment emerged and stock exchanges were established in seventeenth century Europe to trade equities.

In Canada, much of the early development was raised in the London market, with public shares of large companies such as the Hudson’s Bay Company. The Toronto Stock Exchange (TSX) was created in 1861, and 17 years later the TSX was the second official stock exchange in Canada.

Commission-based Investing

At this time, being a stockbroker was a comfortable, genteel and very lucrative profession. By providing investors with access to markets, brokers earned fixed commissions of about 2% or more per trade. This lasted until May 1975, when negotiated commissions were introduced, leading to increased competition and a decrease in direct share ownership. Currently only 17% of the Canadian financial wallet is invested directly in stocks, down from 30% in 1990 when it was second in importance only to short-term deposits.

 Asset managers on the rise

 For less well-heeled investors, the first modern mutual fund was created in Canada in 1932. They were slow to catch on and grew very little between 1930 and 1970. However this was reversed in the 1970s when investors wanted greater stability following the oil crisis. Continue Reading…

Blockchain Revolution, Global Prosperity and Prosperium

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What does the Blockchain Revolution have to do with global prosperity and what’s this new cybercurrency called Prosperium?

Let’s start with the bestselling book Blockchain Revolution, by technology guru Don Tapscott and his son Alex, a former investment banker. I recently re-read the book in preparation for a series of blogs I am doing for a cybercurrency start-up called Prosperium (http://www.prosperium.io/). Prosperium promotes and more importantly intends to generate actual community prosperity. This blog you’re now reading is the debut of that series.

My connection with the firm is through a serial entrepreneur and Canadian internet commerce pioneer named Tony Humble, who was the co-founder of Basis 100 (BAS: TSX). I have previously done business with Tony via The Wealthy Boomer magazine and website (which ran from 1999 to 2005) and later my financial novel Findependence Day, which spawned the Financial Independence Hub (where you’re reading this blog.)

We’ll look at Prosperium and its business model specifically in the follow-up blog to this, including interviews with Prosperium’s founder, Doug Coyle (shown in photo near the end of this blog). But let’s focus first on Blockchain Revolution, since the book is as its title implies a revolutionary blueprint for all things fin-tech, including cybercurrencies like the original Bitcoin and everything spawned in its wake, including Canadian-inspired firms like Ethereum and now Prosperium.

I attended the original launch of the Tapscotts’ book at the Rotman School on May 5, 2016 and you can find my review at the Financial Post and a subsequent one on the Hub. The FP review ran the day after the launch, and the headline is as good a place to kick off this second look at the book: Bitcoin and Blockchain could be the start of a bigger revolution than the Internet itself.

Don Tapscott (L) and Alex Tapscott (R). Youtube.com

Rather than repeat my points in this limited space I refer readers first to that review and then to my first Hub review of the book, which ran on June 1st, 2016. At the end you can find a link to a half-hour YouTube video produced by ThatChannel.com in which Norman Evans (the Hub’s creative director) and I interviewed both Tapscotts and some others who attended the Rotman launch.

Blockchain promises a quantum leap in global prosperity

Continue Reading…

The hardest thing about being a stock investor

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Stock market investors face a difficult challenge. While long-term stock market returns are quite attractive, in the short-term returns can be quite volatile.

This volatility can be difficult to stomach at times, especially when accompanied by worrying news flow.

Adding to the angst for Canadian investors can be the volatility of the Canadian dollar, yet it makes sense for Canadians to diversify globally.  It is important from time to time to review the historical evidence to help us manage our behaviour and stick with our investment plans.  Let’s review some of the long-term evidence:

Evidence*

“Long-term stock markets returns are quite attractive”

  • The average annual return of the S&P/TSX Composite index of Canadian stocks over the 60 years between 1957 and 2016 is 9.1%
  • The average annual return of the S&P500 index of large cap US stocks over the 91 years between 1926 and 2016 is 10%
  • The average annual return of the MSCI EAFE index of developed market stocks outside North America over the 47 years between 1970 and 2016 is 9.1%
  • Exposure to small-company stocks and low-valuation stocks has led to higher performance levels than that of market capitalization weighted indices over long periods of time

“In the short-term returns can be quite volatile”

Continue Reading…