My name is Mark Goodfield. Welcome to The Blunt Bean Counter ™, a blog that shares my thoughts on income taxes, finance and the psychology of money. I am a Chartered Professional Accountant. This blog is meant for everyone, but in particular for high net worth individuals and owners of private corporations. My posts are blunt, opinionated and even have a twist of humour/sarcasm. You've been warned. Please note the blog posts are time sensitive and subject to changes in legislation or law.

Monday, May 31, 2021

“My Kids Will Never Fight Over My Estate”

In December 2019, I reviewed the book “Bobby Gets Bubkes: Navigating the Sibling Estate Fight.” In that book, estate lawyer Charles Ticker attempts to explain how to avoid, or at least limit, sibling estate fights when drafting your will. In the comments section to that post, Michael James, who writes the excellent finance blog Michael James on Money, made the following remark:
Sounds like an interesting book. Sadly, I'm guessing most people incorrectly think that their own kids would never squabble in these ways, so they think they don't need to follow the book's advice.
Michael’s “guess” is very perceptive. Based on my experiences over 35 years as an accountant, many parents look at their children and their sibling relationships with rose-coloured glasses or, in some cases, with blinders. As a consequence, they ignore clear warning signals that their children have significant sibling rivalry issues and don’t work well together. In some cases, you can almost predict a sibling estate fight.

Let me be clear. I am not saying every estate has a sibling fight. Many families settle and distribute the estate in accordance with the will and their parent’s wishes with little acrimony. However, this is far from the case in many estates, as human nature can turn ugly when there is money and sentimental items at stake, especially where sibling issues have reared their heads during the parents’ lifetimes.

Today, I am going to list factors in no particular order that can cause siblings to squabble over an estate.

Why siblings squabble over an estate


  • Greed – Very simply, money causes some people to lose their minds and perspective. This can destroy sibling relationships.
  • Grabbers – I have seen this many times. One child “grabs,” or takes, items before the will is considered, or even ignores the wishes of the will, which starts a spiral of hurt and mistrust among the siblings.
  • Sentimental items – Children often fight over these items. In many cases, this issue can be avoided if the parent simply provides a specific item-by-item allocation in their wills of sentimental items such as jewelry. Parents can also cause huge sibling issues when they promise or tell a child they will receive a certain item and then do not specifically allocate that item to the child in their will—or worse yet, allocate the item to another child. Parents: always make your will consistent with what you have told your children, or communicate the change to them.
  • Grandchildren – There is no right or wrong answer here, but parents really need to think through how to allocate their estate when one of their children does not have children of their own or each family has a different number of grandchildren. Is the estate split equally by family? And if giving money directly to grandchildren—does each grandchild receive the same amount, or is the allocation equal by family and a grandchild with no siblings receives more than a grandchild with siblings?
  • Business assets – When parents leave a business to one sibling and equalize other siblings in cash or investments of equal value, one would think they have accomplished peak fairness. Yet some businesses explode after the parents die, making the child that took over the business very wealthy. Alternatively, the business may stumble or even fail, leaving that child in far worse financial situation than their siblings. Either way, the disparity in financial position creates acrimony. And it’s just one specific nuance of conflict in family business succession.
  • Asset in one child’s name – Parents often put assets in a child’s name for probate or tax planning purposes. But as the saying goes, ownership is nine-tenths of the law. Some siblings may depart from the parents’ assumption that they will act just as trustees of that asset for their siblings. They make think of themselves as the actual owner of the asset.
  • No parents, no buffers - One comment from Charles’ book I found truly relevant was “that once the parental referees are out of the picture, the gloves come off.” I have seen this so often. Parents really do act as buffers and referees for their children. Without a referee, disagreements can break out.
  • Spouses and in-laws – Spouses and in-laws in the ear of one child stoking their belief that the parents divided assets unfairly have caused many a sibling fight.

Parents: Have that discussion


Many of the above issues are human nature, which can’t be avoided entirely. But parents need to consider all the above possibilities when drafting a will. Readers of my blog will know that I am a huge proponent of discussing your will to a full or partial extent with your family and explaining your intentions. I think this can sometimes avoid or minimize sibling estate issues.

It is sad that sibling estate fights are even a topic, but they do unfortunately often become an issue. Parents, my suggestion to you is consider these issues, get good estate planning advice, consider a family meeting, and take off your rose-coloured glasses when planning your estate.

The content on this blog has been carefully prepared, but it has been written in general terms and should be seen as broad guidance only. The blog cannot be relied upon to cover specific situations and you should not act, or refrain from acting, upon the information contained therein without obtaining specific professional advice. Please contact BDO Canada LLP to discuss these matters in the context of your particular circumstances. BDO Canada LLP, its partners, employees and agents do not accept or assume any liability or duty of care for any loss arising from any action taken or not taken by anyone in reliance on the information on this blog or for any decision based on it.

Please note the blog posts are time sensitive and subject to changes in legislation.

BDO Canada LLP, a Canadian limited liability partnership, is a member of BDO International Limited, a UK company limited by guarantee, and forms part of the international BDO network of independent member firms. BDO is the brand name for the BDO network and for each of the BDO Member Firms.

Monday, May 17, 2021

The stunning story of a patient investor who made good

Investment managers and professionals swear by two mantras. The one that gets the most buzz is to understand your risk tolerance. But it’s the other that I want to discuss today: have patience and conviction with your investments. This holds true whether you have hired an investment manager or investment advisor to manage your investments, or are a do-it-yourself investor.

I recently encountered a stunning example of the value of patience in investing. I was preparing a client’s tax return (note: the client has given me permission to discuss this example, without using their name). In preparing her return, I flagged that she may need a T1135 Foreign Income Verification form, which reports foreign holdings. My client had about 2500 shares of Apple stock, and I was unsure whether the shares has an adjusted cost base of more than C$100,000—the threshold to require that form.

The client said no, the original cost was far below the $100,000 threshold. It was just that she had held her Apple shares for around 14 years and not sold them. The client also provided me a summary of her stock purchase history. She had purchased 100 shares of Apple stock in 2008 for around C$16,000 and basically held onto them. She had only sold off a small portion once: in 2012, to help fund a house purchase.

The summary provided was startling. The 2,500 Apple shares that she owns had a fair market value of $375,000 (as of mid-April). Yet all she did was buy the original 100 shares 13 years ago for $16,000 and wait. Time and stock splits, and Apple’s overall strong performance, took care of the rest. What a textbook case of a patient investor (especially so given Apple’s stock price has been all over the place).

As someone who in shredding my tax returns a couple years ago realized how many flyers I had taken, how many disruptive stocks I had purchased looking for the big winner, I felt really ridiculous. I felt even worse when I realized that my first blog post on The Blunt Bean Counter in Sept 2010 was called Why Didn't You Buy Apple for $25?

In that post I discussed famed money manager Peter Lynch, who among many other suggestions noted that by just paying attention to what is going on around you and having some basic common awareness, both the novice and the sophisticated investor can find growth stocks in their day-to-day lives. I then commented in the 2010 post: “think of how much money any of us could have made paying attention to the iPod fad. Kids were suddenly walking around with white wires hanging out of their ears attached to these newfangled ‘Walkmans.’ In retrospect, how could we have missed this and not bought Apple?”

Why I did not buy Apple after writing that blog post is beyond me—and my clients’ timeline is fairly similar to that initial post.

Apple is just an example. You could have purchased most any Canadian bank in 2008 and had spectacular gains if you held the stock. Maybe not as large as Apple, but still substantial with significant less volatility.

So the moral of the story: Patience and conviction in your investing are especially important. That does not mean once you buy a stock you hold it for life; you still must review whether your original reasoning and thesis for purchasing the stock is still valid and whether the company is still growing. But good companies tend to stay good companies, and flipping from one to another or looking for the next disruptor is not necessarily the best strategy. Take it from me.

The content on this blog has been carefully prepared, but it has been written in general terms and should be seen as broad guidance only. The blog cannot be relied upon to cover specific situations and you should not act, or refrain from acting, upon the information contained therein without obtaining specific professional advice. Please contact BDO Canada LLP to discuss these matters in the context of your particular circumstances. BDO Canada LLP, its partners, employees and agents do not accept or assume any liability or duty of care for any loss arising from any action taken or not taken by anyone in reliance on the information on this blog or for any decision based on it.

Please note the blog posts are time sensitive and subject to changes in legislation.

BDO Canada LLP, a Canadian limited liability partnership, is a member of BDO International Limited, a UK company limited by guarantee, and forms part of the international BDO network of independent member firms. BDO is the brand name for the BDO network and for each of the BDO Member Firms.

Monday, May 3, 2021

The tax benefits of donating stocks to charities

There were many intriguing issues a couple months ago when the Reddit subgroup WallStreetBets drove the shares of GameStop, BlackBerry, AMC Entertainment, and others skyrocketing. The issues ranged from retail vs institutional investors to the power of social media stock groups to the way the Reddit group used excessive shorting to manipulate the stock price against the shorters themselves.

I will not comment on these issues today. What I want to discuss is the altruism shown by members of the WallStreetBets group. When I logged on to the forum to see what all the fuss was about, I noticed a lot of digital trash. But what I found remarkably interesting was the numbers of posters saying they would contribute x amount of their proceeds to charity and urging others to do the same. What a congruence of capitalism and altruism.

This blog post deals with the tax benefits of charitable giving and, more particularly, donating public stocks with unrealized capital gains to your charity of choice.

The Reddit folks were not the only winners this year. Those lucky enough to have kept their jobs during COVID in many cases built up excess cash reserves as their spending plunged on entertainment, travel and some retail. Many of those people and other Canadians shut in by COVID turned to stock market trading to entertain themselves and make money (as seemingly any number of stocks and sectors produced outsized gains during various periods throughout the fall and into 2021).

So, if you have significant realized or unrealized gains in 2021, how can you help society and improve your tax situation? The answer: donating part of your winnings or shares in public securities with large gains.

I have discussed this topic before, but given the current circumstances, I think it is a good time for a refresher on the tax benefits of making donations, especially as many charitable organizations are hurting due to COVID. Please note I will only discuss the donations of cash and public securities today.

Donation of cash


If you have realized capital gains on stocks in 2021, you can make a cash donation (the same holds for any cash donation whether from a realized stock gain or just excess cash in your bank account). You can claim a donation credit of up to 75% of your net income. Where an individual makes a charitable donation of cash, there is a federal non-refundable tax credit of 15% on the first $200 of donations. For donations in excess of $200, the non-refundable tax credit increases to 29%. In addition, the provinces provide provincial tax credits.

In Ontario, my home province, the actual tax savings for a donation range from approximately 40% (if your net income is around $50,000) to 50% (if you are a high-rate taxpayer) of your actual donation, for any donations in excess of the $200 limit. Thus, from a cash perspective, your donation only costs you 50-60% of what you donate to the charity. A good deal for all parties.

Donation of public securities


For those of you sitting with large unrealized gains on public securities, a donation of these shares is even more tax effective than a donation of cash from the sale of your shares (this applies to non-registered account donations only, not RRSPs etc.). That is because when you donate public securities listed on a prescribed stock exchange, the taxable portion of the capital gain is eliminated, and the net after-tax cost of the donation is reduced substantially.

For example, if a high-rate Ontario taxpayer sells a stock for a $10,000 gain (say the proceeds were $12,000 and the cost was $2,000), they would owe approximately $2,700 in income tax on the capital gain in the following April. If they donate the gross proceeds of $12,000, the donation would result in income tax savings of approximately $6,000 when they filed their return. The net after-tax cost of the donation is approximately $8,700 ($12,000 + $2,700 tax - $6,000 tax credit).

However, if the taxpayer donated the stock directly to a charity, the organization would receive $12,000, the taxpayer would receive a refund of approximately $6,000, and they would owe no taxes on the capital gain, making the net after-tax donation cost only $6,000.

Clearly, where you have a stock or bond you intend to sell and you plan on donating some or all of the proceeds, a direct contribution of the security to a charity is far more tax efficient. Also note that most charities make the process relatively pain-free.

Donation of securities from a private corporation


Canadian-controlled private corporations (CCPCs) can be taxed in various ways, so I am not going to get into the ins and outs of donating. Speak to your accountant, but it generally won’t matter that much after tax whether you do a personal or corporate donation. When it does matter, the choice of personal vs. corporation depends on your situation.

However, for most CCPCs, they will be able to add 100% of the capital gain ($10,000 in the example above) to their capital dividend account (CDA) and get this money out tax-free (assuming there are no negative attributes to the CDA account). For a detailed discussion of the CDA, see this blog post.

COVID has been far from equal in how it’s impacted different industries and the people working in them. If are one of the lucky ones whose job has not been affected—perhaps it even thrived—and you played the market and had capital gains, you may wish to donate some of your gains to help a good cause. You will help make the world a better place. And as an added bonus, you will reduce your taxes.

The content on this blog has been carefully prepared, but it has been written in general terms and should be seen as broad guidance only. The blog cannot be relied upon to cover specific situations and you should not act, or refrain from acting, upon the information contained therein without obtaining specific professional advice. Please contact BDO Canada LLP to discuss these matters in the context of your particular circumstances. BDO Canada LLP, its partners, employees and agents do not accept or assume any liability or duty of care for any loss arising from any action taken or not taken by anyone in reliance on the information on this blog or for any decision based on it.

Please note the blog posts are time sensitive and subject to changes in legislation.

BDO Canada LLP, a Canadian limited liability partnership, is a member of BDO International Limited, a UK company limited by guarantee, and forms part of the international BDO network of independent member firms. BDO is the brand name for the BDO network and for each of the BDO Member Firms.