The Best of The Blunt Bean Counter - Estate Planning - A Tale of a Father's Selfless Act of Love

This summer I am posting the best of The Blunt Bean Counter blog while I work on my golf game. Today, I am re-posting a January 2012 blog on a father's selfless act of love. That act: getting his estate in order so he did not leave his estate in disarray for his loved ones.

________

Lynne Butler, of Estate Law Canada blog fame, had a blog titled “What my father’s death taught me about estate planning." What was interesting about this blog post, is that Lynne essentially got out of the way and just said you have to read this amazing article. I wondered why Lynne had so little to say until I actually read the guest post on the Getting Rich Slowly blog. Essentially, Jody (the guest poster) relayed how her father planned while he was alive, to make her job as an executor as stress free as possible. If there was ever a selfless act of love in a financial sense, this is it.

This blog was of particular interest to me as I have written several blogs on this topic: Where are your Assets, Speak to your Executor-surprise only works for birthday parties, not death and You Have Been Named an Executor Now What. Like Lynne, I was amazed at how much thought Jody’s father put into his estate. This contrasts with the average person, who often does not even inform their executor that they have been named, let alone provide a roadmap that can be followed once they are gone.

In her guest blog, Jody discusses the steps and actions her father undertook while he was alive to minimize the fees associated with administering his estate, and just as importantly, to keep the process as stress-free for his daughter as possible. While I cannot do Jody's guest blog justice (you really should open the link above and read it), the following is a summary of some of the steps her father took to ensure he minimized Jody's stress in administering his estate.

To help assist in administering your estate, you may wish to download the BDO Estate Organizer so that you have a detailed document for your family and/or executor.  You can link to the estate organizer and download the document here.

Professional team

Jody’s dad not only built a team of advisors - a banker, accountant, insurance agent and lawyer - but he also ensured that he introduced his daughter to each of these advisors while he was alive and ensured that she had their contact information. Think about how smart that was. How much easier is it to communicate and work with someone you can put a name and face to?

Fees

Jody’s dad negotiated the estate fees with his lawyer down to 2% from the typical 4-5%. One can easily see why the lawyer accepted the lower fee. Jody’s father was so organized; the estate probably took one-quarter of the time most estates need to settle. Not only did he negotiate the fee, but he also put those fees aside in a separate account.

Joint Accounts

Jody’s father added Jody to his bank accounts, which allowed her to seamlessly pay bills. As Jody is American and there are no probate fees in the U.S., this was not done for probate purposes, but only for easing the administration of the estate for Jody. See my blog on Joint Bank Accounts Documenting your Intention, to understand some of the issues of using joint bank accounts in Canada.

 

Preparing for death

Jody’s father pre-paid his funeral expenses and even had a master binder that included funeral instructions - he told Jody to go to “F” for Funeral in his binder. Jody essentially had nothing to do but follow instructions.

In addition, her father left extra money for miscellaneous expenses that always arise on an estate. The extra money, whether left in a joint accounts or actually just given to a responsible child, is very important in Canada. The banks will typically pay for the funeral expenses and the probate fees, but access to the funds for any other expenses can be problematic until probate is authorized. Consequently setting aside funds so your executor will not need to beg the bank for access to accounts is a great idea.

Executor Fees

When Jody’s father informed her she would be named executor and he offered compensation, she, like many children, declined because she did not feel that she should charge her father.

However, after undertaking the executor’s job, Jody had this to say: “After he passed away and I realized all that it entailed, I found myself thinking that maybe I should have taken him up on that offer. Being the executor of an estate — even a very well-planned estate — took about 10 to 15 hours a week for months. It’s a big job. I found myself resenting my brothers since I was doing it all.”

The above is a very insightful and honest comment and is the reality in many estates. Jody’s father showed even more insight when he disregarded Jody’s protestation on accepting an executor fee as he had arranged to give her 1% extra when his IRA was distributed.

I cannot say it better than Jody

I conclude with one more quote from Jody. “I honestly consider my father’s financial planning to be a selfless act of love. Despite his generosity, I would trade every last cent for ten more minutes with him. When someone you love dies, it’s brutal. Emotionally, and physically. Trust me; you really are in no state to make these types of financial or legal decisions on your own.”

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.

CRA Information Requests - 2016 Update

Lately, many accountants feel like their main area of practice is responding to information requests sent to our clients by the Canada Revenue Agency (“CRA”). Below, I update you on what I have been seeing in these requests, for both small business owners and individual taxpayers.

What Small Business Owners Need To Know

In 2015, many clients received letters from the CRA requesting support for their equipment (capital cost additions) for income tax purposes. Essentially, the CRA wanted back-up for asset purchases on which capital cost allowance (depreciation) was claimed. These requests were fairly benign and just required some information gathering.

This year, many of my clients have received a CRA information request letter asking for documentary back-up of professional fees claimed on their financial statements.

It appears that for 2016, professional fees are the flavour of year. From the CRA’s perspective, they are looking for personal professional expenses put through small business owner’s corporations. Examples of these types of expenses would be: legal bills for divorces, personal estate planning, and corporate expenses for reorganizations, that should either be all or partially allocated as Eligible Capital Expenditures.

Taxpayers and their accountants are finding these requests extremely time consuming to comply with. The information requested includes a general ledger print out of the expenses, copies of each invoice and where the invoice does not say paid, (invoices issued by professional very rarely are receipted – for example, when your lawyer issues you an invoice for updating your minutes, when you pay, they do not issue a paid receipt) and copies of bank statements to support payment.

Say you have been requested to provide this information for 2014 and 2015; you could be looking for 25-50 invoices if you have a lot of professional subcontractors or are billed monthly by your bookkeeper. You then need to either get each professional to issue a summary receipts letter noting all the invoices issued and paid or provide bank statement back-up (which most clients tend to do).

Once the documentation is provided, the CRA reviews the information (some clients have been contacted to provide additional information or facts) and in some cases issues a reassessment. However, the actual reassessments do not provide any detail as to which expenses have been denied and for what reason(s). Where clients were contacted by the CRA, they assume those expenses were the cause of the reassessment. In other cases, we have to call the CRA to find out what expense(s) were denied. These reassessments are a bit atypical of the CRA who usually provide greater detail in respect of changes made.  

Individual Taxpayers

Non-corporate clients have been receiving several types of information requests. They include:

1. Interest deduction expense claims
2. Foreign tax credit claims
3. Matching income requests

Interest Expense Claims

Several clients have received an information letter request asking for details of their interest expense claims. The letters ask taxpayers for correspondence from the lending institution detailing the original amount of the loan, reasons for the loan, interest expense back-up and bank loan statements. Obtaining this information can be very frustrating, especially where you no longer deal with the lender/bank.

The reasoning behind these information requests is that the CRA is attempting to track the use of funds to a deductible use. i.e. if you took out an investment loan, they want to see the money went into your investment account to purchase marketable securities and was not used partially or wholly for your kitchen renovation.

Foreign Tax Credit Claims

These letters are looking for back-up for foreign taxes paid, where you have claimed a foreign tax credit for investment income or employment or business income earned in another country.

Where you have an investment account with a financial institution and receive a T3/T5 that has foreign income allocated to you and foreign tax withheld, this request is fairly innocuous, as you just essentially send in the T3s or T5s.

However, if you have earned employment income or business income in the United States or another country, you need to provide proof of payment of the taxes. This has become a huge issue for the US, since the IRS does not provide a notice of assessment similar to Canada that shows tax assessed and paid. Thus many people have had to make special requests to the IRS for this information and it is not easily obtained or provided, let alone requests for information from less sophisticated foreign countries. Lately, in the case of the U.S., the CRA is now allowing bank statements and cancelled cheques in lieu of the special request letter, where these documents can support the actual tax paid.

Matching Income Requests

I have written many times about the matching program. Each fall the CRA compares tax slips in its data base to those reported on Canadian’s tax returns. Often slips are missed since they were lost in the mail or misplaced by the taxpayer and the matching program catches the missing slip and related income.

This year, we have started seeing three page print-outs requesting proof that the income was reported. Clients, who have received such requests, have been very concerned that somehow they (or their accountant) missed reporting thousands of dollars of tax slips. However, in most cases, all these slips have been reported, there is just one or two on the three page list that have been reported as perhaps a 50/50 split with a spouse or had an incorrect SIN number.

However, it takes hours to respond to these requests, slip by slip (especially since the financial institutions often summarize income from various sources on T5's, yet report source by source to the CRA. We thus need to reconcile these amounts).

We all accept that the CRA must ensure income tax compliance; however, I wonder if these requests can be streamlined in certain cases? I know some accountants who refuse to Efile and continue to still paper file, solely to reduce the amount of requests they have to deal with.

This is my last post for 2016 and I wish you and your family a Merry Christmas and/or Happy Holidays and a Happy New Year. May your 2017, be information request free :)

This site provides general information on various tax issues and other matters. The information is not intended to constitute professional advice and may not be appropriate for a specific individual or fact situation. It is written by the author solely in their personal capacity and cannot be attributed to the accounting firm with which they are affiliated. It is not intended to constitute professional advice, and neither the author nor the firm with which the author is associated shall accept any liability in respect of any reliance on the information contained herein. Readers should always consult with their professional advisors in respect of their particular situation.

Estate Planning- A Tale of a Fathers Selfless Act of Love

When I wrote my blog post for My 7 Links Project, I struggled with "the most beautiful post" link. Money and beauty are often diametrically opposed. However, thanks to Lynne Butler of the Estate Law Canada blog, I now know what a beautiful financial post would read like.

A month or so back, Lynne had a blog titled “What my father’s death taught me about estate planning”. What was interesting about this blog post, is that Lynne essentially got out of the way and just said you have to read this amazing article. I wondered why Lynne had so little to say until I actually read the guest post on the Getting Rich Slowly blog. Essentially, Jody (the guest poster) relayed how her father planned while he was alive, to make her job as an executor as stress free as possible. If there was ever a selfless act of love in a financial sense, this is it.

This blog was of particular interest to me as I have written several blogs on this topic, Where are your Assets, Speak to your Executor-surprise only works for birthday parties, not death and You Have Been Named an Executor Now What. Like Lynne, I was amazed at how much thought Jody’s father put into his estate. This contrasts with the average person who often does not even inform their executor that they have been named, let alone provide a roadmap that can be followed once they are gone.

In her guest blog, Jody relayed the following things her father did while he was alive to minimize the fees associated with administering his estate, and just as importantly, to keep the process as stress-free for his daughter as possible. While I cannot do Jody's guest blog justice (you really should open the link above and read it), the following is a summary of some of the steps her father took to ensure he minimized Jody's stress in administering his estate.

Professional team

Jody’s dad not only built a team of advisors, a banker, accountant, insurance agent and lawyer, but he ensured he introduced his daughter to each of these advisors while he was alive and ensured that she had their contact information. Think about how smart that was. How much easier is it to communicate and work with someone you can put a name and face to?

Fees

Jody’s dad negotiated the estate fees with his lawyer down to 2% from the typical 4-5%. One can easily see why the lawyer accepted the lower fee. Jody’s father was so organized; the estate probably took one-quarter of the time most estates need to settle. Not only did he negotiate the fee, but he put those fees aside in a separate account.

Joint Accounts

Jody’s father added Jody to his bank accounts which allowed her to seamlessly pay bills. As Jody is American and there are no probate fees in the U.S., this was not done for probate purposes, but only for easing the administration of the estate for Jody. See my blog on Joint Bank Accounts, Documenting your Intention to understand some of the issues of using joint bank accounts in Canada.

 

Preparing for death

Jody’s father pre-paid his funeral expenses and even had a master binder that included funeral instructions - he told Jody to go to “F” for Funeral in his binder. Jody essentially had nothing to do but follow instructions.

In addition, her father left extra money for miscellaneous expenses that always arise on an estate. The extra money, whether left in a joint accounts or actually just given to a responsible child, is very important in Canada. The banks will typically pay for the funeral expenses and the probate fees, but access to the funds for any other expenses can be problematic until probate is authorized. Consequently setting aside funds so your executor will not need to beg the bank for access to accounts is a great idea.

Executor Fees

When Jody’s father informed her she would be named executor and he offered compensation, she, like many children, declined because she did not feel that she should charge her father.

However, after undertaking the executor’s job, Jody had this to say “After he passed away and I realized all that it entailed, I found myself thinking that maybe I should have taken him up on that offer. Being the executor of an estate — even a very well-planned estate — took about 10 to 15 hours a week for months. It’s a big job. I found myself resenting my brothers since I was doing it all.”

The above is a very insightful and honest comment and is the reality in many estates. Jody’s father showed even more insight when he disregarded Jody’s protestation on accepting an executor fee as he had arranged to give her 1% extra when his IRA was distributed.

I Cannot say it better than Jody

I conclude with one more quote from Jody. “I honestly consider my father’s financial planning to be a selfless act of love. Despite his generosity, I would trade every last cent for ten more minutes with him. When someone you love dies, it’s brutal. Emotionally, and physically. Trust me; you really are in no state to make these types of financial or legal decisions on your own”

The blogs posted on The Blunt Bean Counter provide information of a general nature. These posts should not be considered specific advice; as each reader's personal financial situation is unique and fact specific. Please contact a professional advisor prior to implementing or acting upon any of the information contained in one of the blogs.