When you need tax advice, business associates and friends can be a valuable source of ideas and referrals. However, non-professionals can be mistaken or out of date in their tax knowledge, no matter how confident they seem.

This is also true of some semi-professionals—tax preparers, bookkeepers, insurance agents and so on. Court rulings or tax-department crackdowns can close tax loopholes. …read more »

In Canada, capital gains are taxed at a lower rate than interest. You can take advantage of that — and substantially cut your tax bill — if you structure your investments so that more of your income is in the form of capital gains.

(Our free report, “Capital Gains Canada: 7 Secrets for Managing Your Canadian Capital Gains Tax Liabilities,” contains …read more »

When you need tax advice, business associates and friends can be a valuable source of ideas and referrals. However, non-professionals can be mistaken or out of date in their tax knowledge, no matter how confident they seem.

This is also true of some semi-professionals—tax preparers, bookkeepers, insurance agents and so on. Court rulings or tax-department crackdowns can close tax loopholes. …read more »

The year-end tax-loss selling season can create great stock-market bargains, because it puts temporary downward pressure on stocks that have been weak during the year. But the best of the bunch can put on spectacular recoveries after the season ends on December 24.

In our new special report, “Tax-Loss Selling: 7 Christmas Stocks That Could Give You Huge Gains in the …read more »

If you’re looking for stock-market bargains, December is the best time of year to find them.

Here’s why: Investors love to sell stocks for a profit, but they hate to sell at a loss. That’s why many investors spread their selling-for-a-profit throughout the year, while holding on to stocks that have dropped.

Toward year-end, it occurs to these investors that …read more »

Tax-loss selling (or tax-loss harvesting) is a strategy for lowering your Canadian capital gains tax that involves selling a security at a loss in order to offset your capital gains. You can then deduct these losses against your taxable capital gains in the current tax year.

For example, December 24 is the 2010 deadline for tax-loss selling on the Toronto Stock …read more »

Investors sometimes ask us whether they should hold certain investments inside or outside an RRSP to get the most tax benefits.

(We take a close look at how to use your RRSP to maximize your tax savings in our new FREE report, “Capital Gains Canada: 7 Secrets for Managing Your Canadian Capital Gains Tax Liabilities.” Click here to download your copy …read more »

In Canada, capital gains are taxed at a lower rate than interest. You can take advantage of that — and substantially cut your tax bill — if you structure your investments so that more of your income is in the form of capital gains.

(Our new free report, “Capital Gains Canada: 7 Secrets for Managing Your Canadian Capital Gains Tax Liabilities,” …read more »

Discover how to structure your investment portfolio in a way that could save you thousands of dollars

Click here to immediately download our new free report, Capital Gains Canada: 7 Secrets for Managing your Canadian Capital Gains Tax Liabilities.

As you consider how to manage your tax bill for the current income-tax season, you really shouldn’t be without our new free report, …read more »

When you sell any stock outside of an RRSP or RRIF, you must pay capital gains tax if you’ve made a profit on the sale.

To calculate your total capital gain on a share you sold during the previous tax year, subtract the adjusted cost base of the shares you sold from the total proceeds of the sale. The adjusted …read more »