Canadian Personal Finance Blog

According to the Fraser Institute Tax Freedom Day for 2008 was Saturday June 14th. This alleged end of you earning money for taxes means you have the rest of the year to pay for all your other expenses. Speaking as a highly taxed individual (no matter how much I bitch about over spending in my household Taxes by far out strip all other spending we do).

The institute even has a fun little tool to figure out when your specific Tax Freedom Day which was kind of cool to play around with as well.

This artificial celebration really means very little, except that most Canadians pay over 50% of their income in various taxes (if you simply count the number of days until this happy day). How can things change? Less Government spending might help, smarter spending might be nice too (get more from all the money I give you). Given I haven’t had a raise in 5 years, it would be nice if the government was forced to do the same rethinking on spending that my household has had to do (I mean government in the Generic across the board sense, not just the Federal or Provincial folks).

Enjoy earning money for yourself now (figuratively, if not factually).

Mortgage Rates on the Rise?

Thanks to last week’s non-cut by the Bank of Canada most of the major banks are raising their Mortgage rates in reaction.  Any debt vehicle that has a variable rate hasn’t changed that I can tell, but the banks seem to think rates will be going back up very soon, and they are reacting accordingly.  TD Canada Trust’s rates can be found here, Scotiabank’s can be found here, but remember all these rates can be negotiated, and if you don’t want to do that, go to a Mortgage Broker and get a better rate there.

Funny no one has lowered the Credit Card rates lately (sorry had to have a jab at one of my favorite topics).

As an update, I submitted my taxes on the 15th and I got my refund on March 20th, so that is quite the speedy response. I did e-file, which I think speeds up the process, but I thought because I had waited a little later I might not get that quick a response, but in fact, I got the expected refund as did my wife and my daughter, so the taxes for last year are now closed.

The major helper for my larger than average refund were:

1. Mass transit bus pass refund
2. Donations to my Church
3. Active Child tax credit

Since those are really my only non-standard tax deductions (oh and my safety deposit box for investing). I should actually adjust my tax deduction schedule so that I don’t get such a large refund (and instead get the money back during the year), but every year things change so I like to carry a certain amount of “cushion” in case I have unexpected income (like my wife working part time or a sudden win-fall from my financial blogging ).

As a point of information I used Quicktax platinum again this year, mostly out of laziness and they had a package where I got a new copy of Quicken a Quicktax Platinum for about $100, which fit my purposes. I am not endorsing or slagging Quicktax, it worked fine for me, but I would guess other programs might have worked fine as well. I have a very “vanilla” tax return these days (don’t think I really needed the Platinum either).

End of Quarter

Yes this week is that last week of this financial quarter, so I will need to put together an updated financial statement for my wife. It is always interesting and useful to do this for me, just to see where I have made progress and areas where I need to keep working hard.

Time to also look at starting a new financial plan, given my Lenten plan didn’t quite work as hoped, but that is why pencils have erasers, mistakes happen. Start a new plan and see if this is the one that maybe gets you back on track.

A special Friday this week, given it is February 29th, the bissextile day, an extra day for our year, so enjoy this extra day. Have a Leap today!

• With this extra day you have today to finish up your 2007 RRSP purchases if you wish.  Given how down the markets have been, you might find some deals (or you might be buying tainted meat too, I can’t tell).
• Tomorrow is Saint David’s Day (the patron Saint of Wales). Buy a leek and watch a Rugby game.
• You are supposed to have received all of your relative tax forms by now as well (T-4’s and such) so you can now do your taxes. My employer waits until the very last day before sending my tax forms out.
• The Federal Budget passed a confidence motion yesterday, so TFSA’s are a step closer to coming into laws.
• CIBC took a massive write down from the Low Rate Mortgage scandal in the U.S., which means their stock is tanking even further. TD on the other hand announced a tidy profit and an increase in their dividends. A tale of two Banks?
• I am attempting to get back on the horse and STOP spending money at work again, due to another announcement this week.
• I continue to fill in my net income on financial aid questionnaire’s for various universities, which makes me wonder, what do THEY do with all this information? Once they tell me, “You are too stinking rich to deserve financial aid”, do they simply shred my information? I really hope so, because they ask some very SPECIFIC questions (values on specific lines of my tax forms).

Have some mushy peas and maybe some leek soup and enjoy your Saint David’s weekend.