Category: Taxation

The Ministry of Finance released their Tax Expenditures and Evaluations Report for 2010. Although this reading is quite technical for most people, there are a few takeaways in terms of the changes of government tax policy.

For large corporations:

Due to corporate tax reductions, retained earnings and equity will be the most efficient way (with respect to total tax burden) to raise capital, although it is very close with raising debt capital. In the USA, equity is much more expensive than debt, mainly due to deductibility of interest (while dividends are punished by relatively high rates of taxation).

On small business corporations:

Equity and retained earnings remain cheaper than debt financing, once again due to low tax rates. When factoring in the lifetime capital gains exemption for the sale of eligible small business shares, the total tax burden decreases even further.

Further in the report is an interesting analysis on the elasticity of tax rates and actual reported tax collections.

The Senate Standing Committee on Banking, Trade and Commerce is one of the more functional committees in Parliament that hasn’t dissolved into a partisan morass.

In one of their recent reports (October 19, 2010), one of the committee recommendations was that Canadians should receive a $100,000 contribution room to their TFSAs:

The federal government amend the Income Tax Act to establish, in addition to the existing annual contribution room, an amount for lifetime contributions to a Tax-Free Savings Account. The amount of the lifetime contribution room, which should be increased annually in accordance with changes in the Consumer Price Index, should initially be $100,000.

Moreover, the existing ability to carry forward unused annual Tax-Free Savings Account contribution room should continue.

Although this policy is unlikely to be enacted by the government, if they did it would be a non-trivial method of sheltering income. The actual committee report (page 35 onward) goes on to state that most Canadians are very unaware of how to use TFSAs, and that such accounts are typically used to store GICs or other equivalently conservative investments, rather than stocks or bonds.

Anybody investing in the marketplace should be trying to maximize their TFSA as quickly as possible, as it is truly the only “free lunch” that the government gives to people in terms of taxation. Mathematically speaking, the power of compound interest kicks in if you can competently manage the investment portfolio for a long duration of time. Assuming the government does not change the tax advantage of the TFSA, it removes one of the largest risks of financial planning, mainly the future income tax rate.

Now is about the time to think about how your portfolio should look at the beginning of 2011.

In general, it is usually a wise decision to realize capital losses if you have capital gains to offset them with (i.e. in 2007, 2008, 2009 or 2010 tax years). Each realized loss dollar will result in a “refund” of half your marginal rate for that year. One usually wants to back capital losses into the earliest possible year (2007) if available, but if you have a lumpy income stream, then the high marginal rate year would be the correct decision.

Conversely, if you anticipate lumpy income in the future, realizing capital gains in the current tax year if the current year is a low income year may be optimal – these sorts of optimization calculations are never easy to perform.

The big change from previous years is the looming conversion of income trusts to corporations. Most income trusts will be distributing income until the last possible moment. For most, this means trust holders at the end of the year will be receiving income distributions. For those holding trusts in registered accounts (RRSP, TFSA, etc.), the optimal time to move them out of the registered accounts is at the beginning of 2011 and into non-registered accounts. This assumes, of course, that there are substitute investments that bear income that can be placed into the sheltered account.

You can perform this by doing an asset swap in the case of an RRSP; just that non-registered assets that are swapped into the RRSP will have a deemed disposition – a capital gain will be realized at this point. Capital losses are not allowed to be recognized with an asset swap, so if you plan on swapping assets that are in a current loss position, you will have to wait 31 days before repurchasing in order to avoid the so-called “wash rule”.

Tax planning is quite complicated, but in terms of portfolio management, it involves in placing as much income (interest income, REIT income, and solely in the case of an RRSP and not TFSA, US corporate dividends) as possible into sheltered accounts, and as much tax-advantaged income (eligible Canadian dividends, capital gains) outside the registered account. Unlocking the assets from an RRSP in a tax efficient manner is also a non-trivial issue to examine, which strongly depends on personal circumstances. The TFSA is a simple matter with our existing rules – it should always have something inside it.

The concept of tax loss selling is not new – if you are sitting on unrealized losses in your portfolio, you liquidate those investments before year-end so that way you can crystallize the capital loss. The capital loss can be offset against capital gains of up to three years prior (e.g. a 2010 loss can be applied to 2007, 2008 or 2009 gains). If you think the investment still has merit, then it can be repurchased 31 days after the sale to avoid the “wash sale” rule (which would defer the loss and bake it into the cost basis of the new purchase).

As such, a common tactic is to look for securities that have not fared well during the year and purchase them close to year-end as there is likely to be more supply pressure.

It is also possible that this year there will be supply pressure on the income trusts that will be converting to corporations on January 1, 2011. As it is financially optimal for Canadians to be transferring these securities outside of registered accounts and into non-registered accounts, it will not be surprising to see some anomalous price action as the year comes to a close. Even though assets can be transferred between non-registered and registered accounts (by doing an equal-value asset swap in an RRSP, but not TFSA) there is likely to be extra volume seen on the exchanges.