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Below you will find a real life case study of a couple who are looking for financial advice on how best to arrange their financial affairs. Their names and details have been changed to protect their identities. The Globe and Mail often seeks the advice of our VP, Wealth Advisor, Matthew Ardrey, to review and analyze the situation and then provide his solutions to the participants.

Written by: CHRISTINNE MUSCHI
Special to The Globe and Mail
Published March 8, 2019

To buy or not to buy, that is the question for Ron and Rosemary, a couple living and renting in the Montreal area.

Ron is 43 and works as a project manager, Rosemary is 35 and works for a non-profit. Together they bring in about $190,000 a year. They’re considering a condo rather than a house because it would require less upkeep. They have no plans to have children.

Their question: Which is better, buying a condo in the $600,000 range “or continuing to rent throughout our lives?” Rosemary asks in an e-mail. “If we continue to rent, we would definitely be looking at renting a unit in a newer building with all of the amenities we want, possibly pushing the rental price per month to $2,500 or higher,” she adds.

Longer term, they are concerned about saving for retirement. Their postwork spending goal is $100,000 a year after tax, rising with inflation.

We asked Matthew Ardrey, a vice-president and financial planner at TriDelta Financial in Toronto, to look at Rosemary and Ron’s situation.

What the expert says

First, Mr. Ardrey looks at a scenario in which they continue to rent. They would move to a building with better amenities, increasing their rent by $500 a month to $2,500 a month, he notes. All other expenses would remain the same. The planner’s assumptions are based on a life expectancy of 90 for both.

Ron is contributing $645 or 8 per cent of his salary to a defined contribution pension plan with a 6-per-cent company match. Rosemary is contributing $475 a month to an RRSP with a $475-a-month match from her employer. They are stashing away another $1,000 a month in a bank account.

If they decide not to buy, the planner assumes they would transfer the $39,900 they have in their bank account to their tax-free savings accounts. Their budget allows for additional TFSA contributions of $500 a month each, money that is now going toward a down payment.

Ron plans to retire at 65 and Rosemary at 70. When they do, they will receive Canada Pension Plan and Old Age Security benefits. Because Ron is an immigrant to Canada, the plan assumes he will get 80 per cent of maximum CPP and OAS. Rosemary will receive 100 per cent. In addition, her monthly CPP benefit will be 42-per-cent higher than if she had started receiving it at 65.

Mr. Ardrey looks at the couple’s investments. Based on their current portfolio structure, they have a historical average rate of return of 4.4 per cent. The average investment cost of their portfolio, excluding Ron’s DC pension plan, is 1.7 per cent, leaving them a net return of 2.7 per cent. After inflation, forecast to be 2 per cent, their real rate of return is 0.7 per cent.

In retirement, Rosemary and Ron want to spend $100,000 a year. “Based on the assumptions above, they fall slightly short of their goals, running out of funds near the end of Rosemary’s life,” Mr. Ardrey says. If they cut their spending a bit, they could reach their goal, but they would have “zero financial cushion.”

Now he looks at a scenario in which they buy a condo for $600,000. They have almost $40,000 saved, so they will need a mortgage for $560,000 at an estimated 3.5 per cent, amortized over 25 years. Their payments would be about $2,570 a month.

Offsetting the mortgage expense is the fact they would no longer be paying rent. Living expenses in retirement would be $76,000 a year after the mortgage is paid off, substantially less than if they were still paying rent. Any budget surplus is assumed to be saved to the TFSAs each year.

“Based on these assumptions, Rosemary and Ron can reach their retirement goal,” Mr. Ardrey says. Not having to pay rent when they retire “is a major factor,” he notes. This cost reduction more than offsets the reduction in savings.

If they decided to spend all of their investment assets, leaving only their real estate and personal effects, they could increase their spending by $1,000 a month, inflation adjusted, the planner says.

“So of the two scenarios, the decision to purchase the condo is the financially preferred one,” he concludes. “In addition to the cash flow numbers being stronger, Rosemary and Ron would also have a real estate asset that in an emergency they could borrow against or sell if need be.”

Finally, Ron and Rosemary should review their investment strategy to improve their investment returns and lower their costs, Mr. Ardrey says. Their current asset mix is about 90-per-cent stocks and stock funds, and 10-per-cent cash and fixed income.

Instead, he recommends 65 per cent stocks and stock funds, 25 per cent alternative income investments and 10 per cent fixed income. Alternative income funds – which can be bought through an investment counselling firm – include strategies such as private debt, global real estate and accounts receivable factoring. “This would broaden their diversification into an asset class that has historical returns of 7 to 9 per cent a year and little to no correlation to equity markets,” the planner says.

Making this change could increase their returns to 6.5 per cent and reduce investment costs to 1.5 per cent.

The difference would be material. “If they remain renters, then they go from falling just short to being able to increase their retirement spending by $18,000 per year,” the planner says. In the condo scenario, the potential for extra spending would be even greater.

Client situation

The people: Ron, 43, and Rosemary, 35

The problem: Should they rent or buy?

The plan: Go ahead and buy the condo, but review investments to diversify their holdings, potentially improve returns and lower investment costs.

The payoff: Retirement goals met with a financial cushion besides.

Monthly net income: $10,800

Assets: Cash $39,900; her TFSA $5,470; his TFSA $5,300; her RRSP $88,030; his RRSP $79,030; market value of his defined contribution pension plan $10,000. Total: $227,730

Monthly outlays: Rent $2,000; tenant insurance $25; utilities $180; furnishings, decorating, maintenance $350; transportation $605; grocery store $900; clothing $320; gifts, charity $1,000, vacation, travel $1,000; dining, drinks, entertaining $900; personal care $350; pets $115; sports, hobbies $490; dentists $50; drugstore $10; phones, TV, internet $340; his DC pension plan $645; her RRSP $475. Total: $9,755 Surplus goes to saving.

Liabilities: None

Want a free financial facelift? E-mail finfacelift@gmail.com.

Some details may be changed to protect the privacy of the persons profiled.

Presented By:
Matthew Ardrey
VP, Wealth Advisor
matt@tridelta.ca
(416) 733-3292 x230

When people think of retirement, they make think of relaxing at the cottage, traveling the world, or maybe with the recent blasts of winter we have been receiving, spending some time in warmer climates. What most people don’t think about is how my taxes are going to change. Yes, with April just around the corner, it is time to think about taxes and how they will affect you in retirement could be the difference from lying on a beach in February and shoveling your driveway for the fifth time this week.

If like many Canadians, you are a couple where both spouses work, the opportunities to split income are few and far between. In retirement that changes for the better. A number of years ago the government introduced legislation that allows pension income to be split between spouses. If you are already the lucky recipient of income from a defined benefit (DB) pension plan, you can further benefit by splitting up to 50% of this income with your spouse. The obvious benefit to this is the lower income spouse would pay less tax on the pension income than the higher income spouse.  Also, he/she would now receive the pension credit, which is a non-refundable federal tax credit that maxes out at $2,000. So depending on the disparity of the tax rates between spouses and size of the pension, this could be a material benefit to their tax returns saving thousands of dollars a year in taxes.

Ok, that is great for those Canadians who have a pension, but what about the rest of us?

Once a taxpayer is over the age of 65, they can split life annuity, RRIF and LIF income in the same manner as DB pension income. This can lead to some interesting tax planning for someone who is doing a RRSP meltdown strategy. If one spouse has a much larger RRSP/RRIF than the other, they can double the meltdown amount by taking it from a RRIF instead of a RRSP after the age of 65. In doing this, the RRSP (or RRIF in this case) meltdown strategy could be extended to age 70, with CPP and OAS deferrals.

Other benefits to income splitting include being able to claim the age amount tax credit and possibly reducing or eliminating OAS clawback.

The mechanism for doing this in your taxes is relatively straightforward and does not have to be implemented until you file your taxes the following April. There is a form T1032 in your tax return where you make the pension election. Most tax software these days will do the calculation for you. Once all of your other information is entered for you and your spouse, the software will optimize the pension splitting between spouses. Even if you both have a pension, it can do this for you.

The topic of income splitting continues with your government pensions. Though OAS is not eligible to be shared, the CPP is. You and your spouse can apply to share your CPPs. You both have to be contributors at some point in your lives and both be receiving the pension. The amount eligible to share is based on your joint contributory period, which is just a fancy way of saying the time you were married or cohabitating. The benefit increases with the difference between CPP payment amounts.

While we are on the topic of CPP, I thought it was important to mention the child rearing drop out provision. Unlike the general drop out provision, which is calculated automatically, the child rearing must be applied for.

How does it work?

Let’s take you back to grade school where we learned about fractions. The CPP you receive is a fraction of the maximum payable, ignoring any early penalties or deferring benefits. The total number of years is 47 (age 18-65). The general drop out provision eliminates the lowest eight, making the denominator 39. Any year you make the maximum contribution you get a 1 in the numerator and if not, then a number between 0 to less than 1.

The child rearing drop out provision allows a spouse who may have stopped or reduced their work due to child care, to eliminate up to seven years per child (no double counting years if you have children close in age). The benefit is any year that has less than a 1 in the numerator that is eliminated, will increase the overall CPP payable to you.

Another tax surprise for many retirees is tax installments. If you were self-employed, you will be familiar with these, but many salaried employees are not. Tax installments are requested by CRA once your taxes payable less your taxes deducted at source exceed $3,000. While working, your employer took taxes at source. In addition, you probably had RRSP deductions and other things that reduced your taxes or generated you a refund. Now with RRIF payments, CPP, OAS and other incomes, you may end up owing taxes.

CRA wants to get its taxes earlier rather than waiting until April. So it will request them of you in four quarterly installments over the year. This is CRA’s estimate of what you will owe this year based on previous years’ filings. You can choose to pay what they request or not if you feel your situation is different this year. But be warned, if you underpay your taxes you will be charged installment interest. If you overpay them, CRA does not pay you any interest on the overpayment. Nice work if you can get it!

After all this talk of taxes, maybe all you do want to do is lie on a beach or somewhere warm.

When you do, if you are like many Canadians, you will head to our neighbours to the south. However, before you do, consider some of the tax implications of doing so.

If you fall in love with the warm weather, you may be tempted to purchase a vacation home in the U.S. In doing so, you have opened yourself up to U.S. Estate Tax exposure. By owning U.S. real property, you are considered to have U.S. situs property, which falls under the U.S. estate tax laws. The likelihood that you will end up paying any estate tax these days is low because of the increase threshold limits, but consult someone familiar with the rules before making a purchase.

Another exposure with spending time in the U.S., is actually the time you spend in the U.S. The U.S. has a substantial presence test where they could deem you a resident for U.S. tax purposes if the calculation shows you spent over 182 days there in the past three years.

Consider the calculation for someone who spends 4 months (120 days) in the U.S. per year.

Current Year each day counts as 1 = 120 X 1 = 120
Previous Year each day counts as 1/3 = 120 X 1/3 = 40
Second Previous Year each day counts as 1/6 = 120 X 1/6 = 20

Thus, by spending four months in the U.S., this person’s substantial presence test calculation is at 180 days, very close to the threshold.

In cases, where you plan to spend a significant amount of time in the U.S. each year, you should file a U.S. form 8840, Closer Connection Form. This form establishes that even though you spend a substantial amount of time in the U.S., your connection to and therefore tax filing obligation is to Canada.

So thought the pressures of work may be days gone by, the tax complexity often ramps up in retirement. Make sure you are set up to optimize your tax situation in retirement, as proper planning can allow you to have your fun in the sun instead of being left out in the cold.

Written By:
Matthew Ardrey
VP, Wealth Advisor
matt@tridelta.ca
(416) 733-3292 x230

Below you will find a real life case study of a couple who are looking for financial advice on how best to arrange their financial affairs. Their names and details have been changed to protect their identities. The Globe and Mail often seeks the advice of our VP, Wealth Advisor, Matthew Ardrey, to review and analyze the situation and then provide his solutions to the participants.

Written by: DIANNE MALEY
Special to The Globe and Mail
Published January 18, 2019

Shawn and Sharon plan to retire together in a year or so, leaving jobs that pay a combined $195,885 a year. He is 59, she is 56.

Shawn has a defined benefit pension plan that will pay him about $21,000 a year starting in 2020. Both have substantial sums in defined contribution pension plans, which depend on financial market performance for their value. Shawn’s is from a previous employer.

They have a house in Saskatchewan with a mortgage and two grown children, one of whom is living at home. They are helping one of the children pay off a student loan.

Their retirement goals are ambitious: winters down south, frequent trips to visit family and some overseas travel, as well. This leads them to a spending target of $90,000 a year for the first 10 years, falling thereafter. Their plan to retire early would require them to draw heavily on their DC pension plans in the first few years.

We asked Matthew Ardrey, a vice-president and portfolio manager at TriDelta Financial in Toronto, to look at Shawn and Sharon’s situation.

What the expert says

Mr. Ardrey looks at how Shawn and Sharon would fare if they retired in a year and a half – on June 1, 2020 – and deferred Canada Pension Plan benefits to age 65 as planned.

Further saving potential is limited. While they show a surplus in their cash-flow statement, this money is going to travel and helping their son pay off his student loan, the planner notes.

When Shawn retires, he will get $21,000 a year from his DB pension plan. They will retire with a mortgage and line of credit outstanding, Mr. Ardrey notes. The mortgage of $126,000 is scheduled to be paid off by November, 2024, and the $10,000 line of credit by October, 2020.

“Once they retire, they will need to draw on their registered assets almost immediately,” Mr. Ardrey says. Their DC pension plans are a bit different from most. Usually DC pension plans are converted into locked-in retirement accounts (LIRA) when a person retires and then to a life income fund (LIF) when they begin drawing a pension. Sharon’s DC plan can stay with the Saskatchewan government’s Public Employees Pension Plan administration and be transferred to what is known as a variable pension benefit account. Or it can be transferred out to what is known as a prescribed registered retirement income fund (PRRIF). Shawn’s locked-in retirement account (from his DC plan) can be transferred into a PRRIF as well.

The advantage of a PRRIF is that you can take locked-in money from a pension (a LIRA) between the ages of 55 and 72 instead of putting it into a LIF, which has maximum withdrawal restrictions. “So essentially, it is allowing locked-in money to be used like regular RRIF money” from an RRSP, the planner says.

“The advantage here is that there are no maximum withdrawals in these accounts, allowing them the necessary financial flexibility to draw on their savings,” he says.

But are their savings enough to last a lifetime?

Shawn and Sharon are currently spending about $76,000 a year once debt repayment and savings are subtracted. They would like to raise this to $90,000 a year when they retire to allow for additional travel in the first 10 years.

“Based on these assumptions, Shawn and Sharon will not be able to achieve their goal,” Mr. Ardrey says. They will fall short in their later years, when Shawn is about age 85. They would still have their house, which they could sell, but “I much prefer to leave the home intact as a financial cushion to cover unexpected expenses,” the planner says.

They could alter their plans, working longer, saving more and spending less in retirement. Or they could take steps to improve their investment returns after fees. Leaving their goals intact, Mr. Ardrey looks at how they might fare if they sought professional investment management for their entire portfolio, their personal savings and their combined work pension money.

As it is, their RRSPs are 75 per cent in stocks, which is high, given how close they are to retiring, he says. Instead, the planner suggests they add some alternative income investments to their portfolio, something they can do by hiring an investment counsellor (portfolio manager) with expertise in the area. Alternative income funds include such strategies as private debt, accounts receivable factoring and global real estate.

Doing so should boost their investment returns to about 6.5 per cent, or 5 per cent a year after subtracting investment costs of 1.5 percentage points. “In Shawn and Sharon’s case, the value [in alternative investments] is not only the increased return, but also the reduction in equity exposure, reducing the overall portfolio volatility.”

This compares with historical returns of 4.25 per cent before fees of 0.5 per cent on their DC pension money and 4.55 per cent before fees of 2.2 per cent on their personal savings. “After inflation of 2 per cent, there is very little real return in their personal strategy,” the planner says.

The effect of a 5-per-cent net return on their retirement plan would be dramatic, Mr. Ardrey says. “Instead of falling short of their goal and running out of money when Shawn is 85 they would have more than enough to meet their lifestyle needs.” They would even be able to increase their spending by $9,000 a year if they chose to.

Client situation

The people: Shawn, 59, and Sharon, 56

The problem: Can they afford to retire early and travel without running out of savings?

The plan: Either adjust the goals or take steps to improve their investment returns after fees by hiring a professional money manager.

The payoff: With higher returns, they could well meet their original goals.

Monthly net income: $10,800

Assets: Cash $5,000; his TFSA $10,000; his RRSP $90,000; her RRSP $25,000; his DC pension plan $420,000; estimated present value of his DB pension plan $435,755; her DC pension plan $585,000; residence $450,000. Total: $2-million

Monthly outlays: Mortgage $1,980; property tax $330; home insurance $125; utilities $305; car lease $650; insurance, fuel $350; grocery store $700; clothing $100; line of credit $500; gifts, charitable $245; vacation, travel $800; dining, drinks, entertainment $1,450; personal care $350; pets $350; other personal $60; health, life, disability insurance $185; phones $160; TV, internet $150; TFSAs $400. Total: $9,190. Surplus of $1,610 goes to student loan and travel spending.

Liabilities: Mortgage $126,000; line of credit $10,000. Total: $136,000

Want a free financial facelift? E-mail finfacelift@gmail.com.

Some details may be changed to protect the privacy of the persons profiled.

Presented By:
Matthew Ardrey
VP, Wealth Advisor
matt@tridelta.ca
(416) 733-3292 x230