Snow Talk
I went to Grouse two days ago. The conditions were absolutely FANTASTIC! I love powder as much as the next person does, but a close second would be the spring time conditions that we usually find in March and April. I love that because;
- the snow is soft and it’s damn near impossible to seriously hurt yourself and
- I’m not so tempted to pass up some laps in the park
So I got up there at about 230pm and basically did laps for 2.5 hours. It doesn’t seem like a whole lot of time, but doing lap after lap in the same park can get tedious and boring (especially when I’m riding by myself). I just practiced back 3’s and back 5’s the whole day. I hope it’ll be as good next week when I go again.
Money Talk
So on a COMPLETELY different note, Canada’s Finance Minister, Jim Flaherty, unveiled the 2008 budget yesterday. Here are the major highlights;
Tax-Free Savings Accounts
This is basically an RRSP that doesn’t allow you to write off your contributions from your current year income. It does, however, shelter any growth and capital gains from taxation. It allows for $5000 per year with any unused contribution room eligible for a carry-over.
This new proposal was probably in reaction to the recent economic turmoil in the States. It essentially should encourage tax payers to save money instead of squandering it all, giving them something to fall back on in case the States goes down and drags Canada even further with it.
Registered Education Savings Plans (RESPs)
A 10-year extension is proposed for RESPs, allowing contributions to an RESP for someone as old as 31 years of age. Beware of your children requiring this, as they might also be the type who will live in your basement until they have children. Other symptoms include a Star Wars obsession, World of Warcraft LAN parties, and spending countrless hours building and painting Gundam figurines.
Dividend Gross Up
Proposed changes call for a lower gross up of on dividends received. That might sound like a good thing, but not necessarily. Basically, the lower the gross up, the less you take home. This is assuming your combined Federal and Provincial dividend tax credits are equal to the gross up. Here’s an example.
As you can see, on the same $30,000 you take home $1,260 more with a higher gross up than you do with the proposed gross up.
I’ve been a firm believer in trying to find ways to avoid tax as much as possible, and it sucks to see that while it does effectively lower the amount of tax your pay, it doesn’t really end up in your favor when you look at your pocket book at the end of the day.