Running a successful small business requires the input of many highly skilled, trained professionals such as:
- Tax Accountant
- Lawyer
- Investment Advisor
- Insurance Advisor
- Family Office
- Family Enterprise Consultant
- Banker
- Retirement Lifestyle Planner
- Business Coach
- Trust Office
- Financial Planner
- Philanthropy Specialist
Question: Of these professionals which one has the greatest knowledge and experience rolled into one?
Answer: none
Similar to obtaining a 3D image of planet earth – multiple satellites are required to give the highest resolution, front, back, side to side, top and down view to yield a complete picture. Running a small business requires a similar multidisciplinary, collaborative approach.
Tax Advice for Work & Home
Our business and home are closely intertwined. Decisions made to one often impacts the other directly. Tax impacts our work and home front in many ways. Too often we simply look to the past by focusing only on what has happened in a previous tax year. Although this rear-view mirror approach works for most – as it relates to future planning not incorporating the services of a tax specialist can lead to the saying of ‘failing to plan is planning to fail’. Read More
Most business owners are not aware of the degree of insight tax specialists such as tax lawyers and tax accountants can bring to future proofing your business, home and succession. Done correctly tax planning can produce overnight benefits as it relates to tax savings and reducing your exposure to creditor litigation. By not incorporating tax planning into your business creates a true cost of doing nothing or more of the same.
Exiting Your Business
Business owners invest time, sweat, tears and money into building their business to only one day exit into retirement winding it down showing little to no value for their lifetime work. Running a business is time consuming perhaps to the point we are reacting vs responding to what could be a sellable asset for retirement. Read More
Business succession specialists look at the day to day mechanics and viability of your business, target market, human resources and systems to determine if your creation can be turned into monetized value. There is more to selling a business than bringing in a business valuator. Preparing a business for sale takes the right fit of specialists and the result is certainty as it relates to obtaining a map on how to arrive to the future, from your starting point – today.
After your dead: Preserving vs Depleting what you have built
You have created the money for the family BUT have you prepared the family for the money?
As it relates to estate planning – dying is probably the easiest part of this process. What comes after is something no one can prepare a family for. How will final taxes be paid? From what source(s)? Who is willing to share the family cabin with siblings? If fair cannot always mean equal – how do beneficiaries buy the interests of others out? How much is capital gains tax when you pass away? Do you need to sell and part with family heirlooms and legacy to pay for capital gains? Read More
What if we could avoid these stressful situations by having a plan and funding in place to preserve what has been gifted to us? Not having a plan or accessible funds in play usually means having to deplete the estate to pay the government vs ourselves. Wills are an important framework for these scenarios. Adding specialists such as tax lawyers and tax accountants can provide instant savings on terminal and capital gains taxes owed at death.
Creative Personal or
Corporate Lending Solutions
When it comes to more efficient tools for debt servicing one innovative means lies with all-in-one accounts.
These savvy accounts act as your debt, savings and chequing account – rolled into one. What this translates to is with everything working together you have a mechanism that earns you interest on salary deposits from day one. The interest gained on these deposits offsets the interest gained from debt balances. The combined NET result is reducing your amortization period on your loans and with it total interest paid. When used in place of mortgages – all in one accounts can make homeowners and business owners their own bank. One added bonus? You can pay off balances in FULL without penalty. Read More
Another means of accessing liquidity is through cash value life insurance.
These are policies which have an investment core with the death benefit as its shell. The investment core compounds and grows over time – tax deffered. Just like a home equity line of credit – these policies can be used to access the equity of the policy by collateralizing a bank loan with the contract. Leaving the cash inside the policy means not attracting tax to access it and you maintain growth via compounding. As an option the interest on the loan can be capitalized against the cash values and death benefit of the policy.
Translation: you can access cash in your policy tax and interest free. At time of death – the loan is settled with the cash value of the contract and the net cash values along with the death benefit are paid to the nominated beneficiaries and/or estate – tax free.
Alberta, British Columbia & Nova Scotia