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Life Insurance and the Capital Dividend Account

Life Insurance and the Capital Dividend Account

Many business owners are unaware that corporate owned life insurance combined with the Capital Dividend Account (CDA) provides an opportunity to distribute corporate surplus on the death of a shareholder to the surviving shareholders or family members tax-free.

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How is Your Retirement Shaping Up?

How is Your Retirement Shaping Up?

If you are one of the lucky ones who participate in a pension plan, consider yourself to be very fortunate. Statistics show that only approximately one-third of paid workers in Canada are covered by a registered pension plan. * If your plan is a Defined Benefit Pension Plan (DBPP) you can consider yourself even more fortunate as this is considered to be the crown jewel of pension plans. The other type of plan available is a Defined Contribution Pension Plan (DCPP). So, how do these plans differ?

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Family Business Planning Strategies

Family Business Planning Strategies

67% are at Risk of Succession Failure

If you are an owner in a family enterprise, the likelihood of your business successfully transitioning to the next generations is not very good.

With 80% to 90% of all enterprises in North America being family owned, it is important to address the reasons why transition is difficult.

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Estate Planning Tips for Real Estate Investors

Estate Planning Tips for Real Estate Investors

For many Canadians, the majority of their wealth is held in personally owned real estate. For most this will be limited to their principal residence, however, investment in recreational and real estate investment property also forms a substantial part of some estates. Due to the nature of real estate, it is important to utilize estate planning to realize optimum gain and minimize tax implications.

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Critical Illness – Are You Protected?

Critical Illness – Are You Protected?

Critical Illness insurance was invented by Dr. Marius Barnard. Marius assisted his brother Dr. Christiaan Barnard in performing the first successful heart transplant in 1967 in South Africa. Through his years of dealing with cardiac patients, Marius observed that those patients that were better able to deal with the financial stress of their illness recovered more often and at a much faster rate than those for whom money was an issue. He concluded that he, as a physician, could heal people, but only insurance companies could provide the necessary funds to create the environment that best-promoted healing. As a result, he worked with South African insurance companies to issue the first critical illness policy in 1983.

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