Category Archives: news and updates
Vivat Regina!
Happy belated Victoria Day long weekend! Hopefully you had a great long weekend, planted your garden or went camping! While Queen Victoria is long gone, our present monarch, Queen Elizabeth II is celebrating her 60th year on the throne; 2012 is her Diamond Jubilee. Think you know your Queen? Click here to read some interesting facts about her.
For the latest edition of the newsletter (including a short features on the Mac Bros!), please click here.
Enjoy the sunshine and enjoy your weekend!
Cheers,
Ben
A helping hand…
For the most part, we’re very, very fortunate to live in Canada. People elsewhere are not always so lucky. As most of you know, I am a fan of the micro-finance site KIVA. Over the last few years, we’ve been supporting various individuals around the world with loans to help them build businesses and improve life for their families. It is very rewarding to see the progress they’ve made and I log into the site a number of times per month to review my loan portfolio.
At present, an anonymous person donated a sizeable dollar figure to KIVA which is being used to attract new lenders to the site. If you register, you can receive a free $25 starter loan amount which you can then direct to a loan applicant of your choice. If you choose to make further loans – great! If not, then at least you’ve made a $25 loan and learned a little about micro-finance. You can receive your free loan amount here.
There is no cost to sign up and KIVA does not sell your information. I know of some retirees who use KIVA and I know of a parent who uses KIVA to help teach his children about geography and cultures around the world; there is no age limit! For more information on KIVA behind the scenes, you can read the 2011 annual report which is in a graphic format and actually quite interesting to review. For a quick overview of how KIVA works, you can read more here.
Thanks, take advantage of the free $25 starter loan and have fun!
Cheers,
Ben
It’s tax refund time…
Well, it seems like spring is finally here – a bit of sunshine and the cherry blossoms are out! With spring comes another annual rite – the tax refund!! I’ll have a little more on this topic in the next newsletter but for now add your voice to the poll and see where you stack up when it comes to your refund. Enjoy the sunshine!
The penny…drops
One day after the 2012 Federal Budget was announced, social media sites are a-buzz with news that the Canadian penny is going the way of the dodo! A number of other countries have ditched their equivalent of this coin, including Australia, Brazil, Finland, Israel, Norway and Sweden. It costs about $0.016 to create a penny which doesn’t equate to a good return on investment!
One of the other major changes announced deals with Old Age Security. In about ten years, the earliest age at which you can claim OAS will increase to 67 from 65; this change will be phased in over a six year period. If you are 54 as of 31 Mar 2012, nothing will change for you. If you are born on or after 1 Feb 1962, you will claim OAS at 67 not 65.
For a summary of the budget and how it pertains to your life, please click here to download a PDF.
Thanks and have a nice weekend,
Ben
Where do you stack up?
With tax time nearly here, most of us are gathering tax slips, income statements and getting ready to prepare our tax returns for 2011. As a quick reminder, remember you won’t get any slips for TFSA contributions or withdrawals as they are ‘tax-free’ and therefore exempt from tax consequences.
Are you someone who basically has a set income each year or do you see large fluctuations in your annual income? Do you wonder where you compare income wise, relative to the rest of the population? Well, McLean’s Magazine decided to help out.
In 2007, the threshold to qualify as one of Canada’s top one per cent of earners was a relatively modest $169,000 a year, compared to the U.S.’s eye-popping $400,000. To compare your income with rest of Canada, please click here.
*Calculations are based on data from the Canada Revenue Agency’s Interim Income Statistics report, 2011 Edition (2009 tax year), Table 2 (All returns by total income class). Note that percentiles refer to income brackets, so an income of $29,999 falls into the bottom 51.9 per cent of Canadian tax-filers, whereas an income of $30,000 belongs to the top 48.1 per cent. Also, incomes below $1 and above $249,999 are not pictured proportionally. McLean’s would also like to thank the Conference Board of Canada and Armine Yalnizyan of the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives for their assistance with research for the calculator.
