We've made it through RRSP Season and for many of you, you'll now be getting Contribution Receipts and Tax Slips. RRSP Contribution Receipts are extremely important for reducing your taxable income. If you hold Non-Registered Assets, you'll generally get some Tax Slips for any Dividends, Interest, and/or Capital Gains that you got throughout last year.
There is a lot to talk about this month as we’re right into Tax Season now and as I write this, there are some pretty serious Tariffs being proposed by the US Government which has shaken the market. We’ve had such a long run up that investors have almost forgot how volatility can feel but we’ve got a lot of that since February! As always, this will affect your Equity Positions a lot more than it will for Balanced Mandates and Fixed Income.
Not only have we had a pile of snow and some awfully cold weather this February, we've also had an avalanche of volatility in the market! After a huge run up on a number of Stock Exchanges around the country, we finally witnessed a pull-back. By the end of Feb. 9th, we had seen an official correction on a number of markets. While this is never a lot of fun to watch, it comes with the territory and in some cases, can be healthy. The fundamentals still appear to be strong so most are chalking this up to profit taking.
With a few weeks to go before the year-end, you may wish to think about some moves you can take now to save you some taxes for 2016.
Along with the usual advice to do any tax loss selling before December 23rd on any equity investments to offset any capital gains earned in other investments during 2016, there are a few new tax planning strategies that you can take advantage of.
As you may recall, our December Newsletter discussed some of the changes that were coming in regards to Income Tax and Investment Savings Plans. At that time, we didn’t have all the details and only knew that there would be change to legislation.
