Jamie Golombek is Managing Director, Tax and Estate Planning at CIBC Private Wealth Management, where he works closely with advisors and clients from CIBC Private Wealth Management, Wood Gundy, Imperial Service and other CIBC partners to deliver integrated financial planning and strong advisory solutions. Jamie is quoted frequently in the national media as an expert on taxation.
The Canada Revenue Agency announced last summer that it was in the process of auditing “all tax shelter gifting arrangements,” but now it will be much easier to find those donors thanks to a recent decision by the Supreme Court of Canada (SCC). Late last month, the highest court handed down its decision in a […]
Wednesday morning, in a jam-packed Supreme Court of Canada, the country’s highest court heard arguments in the now-infamous Lipson tax case, involving interest deductibility and the General Anti-Avoidance Rule (GAAR). So great was the interest in the case that a line snaked its way outside of the courthouse onto the front steps as anxious observers […]
(March 2008) Probably the most talked about tax topic among advisors is the tax treatment associated with the buying and selling of the advisor’s own practice. The tax treatment came to widespread attention in the now infamous 2004 decision of the Supreme Court of Canada in Gifford (2004 SCC 15). Gifford, an employee and advisor […]
(February 2008) The federal Home Buyers’ Plan (HBP) allows a first-time home buyer, along with his or her spouse or common law partner, to withdraw up to $20,000 each from a Registered Retirement Savings Plan to purchase a first home. Under the plan, the RRSP must be repaid over a 15-year period, beginning with the […]
(February 2008) An issue which perennially rears its ugly head is the topic of joint ownership of assets, specifically “joint tenants with right of survivorship,” or JTWROS for short. Under a JTWROS account, which is available in all provinces other than Quebec, upon the death of one of the joint owners the property in the […]
(February 2008) In part one, we discussed the first of two Ontario Court of Appeal cases (Pecore v. Pecore, 2005 CanLII31576 [ON C.A.]) involving joint accounts that the Supreme Court of Canada heard last May. In part 2 we will be discussing Saylor v. Brooks, (2005 CanLII 39857 [ON C.A.]), which surprisingly came to a […]
(August 2007) If you conduct your advisory practice through an employee-employer relationship, as opposed to being self-employed, no doubt you’re aware that your ability to deduct expenses is much more restrictive than if you owned your own business. Each year, several tax cases make their way to Tax Court in which employees attempt to write […]
(February 2008) In May of last year, the Supreme Court of Canada released its two seminal decisions on joint accounts, upholding what at first seem to be seemingly contradictory results in each of the lower courts’ rulings. The cases in question were Pecore v. Pecore and Madsen Estate v. Saylor. While the cases are discussed […]
(April 2007) Financial advisors who use a personal corporation to run their practice need to ensure that they are meticulous when structuring their business affairs, to make sure that the corporation, not the advisor in his or her own personal capacity, is actually in the business of providing financial advice. This issue was highlighted by […]
(April 2007) One of the most significant tax changes for 2007 was the announcement last fall by the Conservatives to permit pension income splitting. The rules governing the type of income that can be split mirror the rules for definition of “pension income” in the Income Tax Act and, as currently drafted, tend to discriminate […]