Wealth Management Videos

Do you ever find yourself asking questions like, how can I manage my family's higher tax burden and lower our taxes? How can I reduce the financial risks facing my family? How can I maximize my after-tax retirement income? How can I leave a greater legacy to my family and charity? If you're asking questions like these, you may have reached a stage in life where your financial affairs have become more complex.

That's where wealth management can help. So, what is wealth management? Wealth management is a term often used synonymously with investment management. But it's actually much more than that. Wealth management goes beyond investment management to look at your overall financial situation. It brings together the different areas of expertise and solutions you need in a single overall wealth plan.

This includes investing, financial planning, tax minimization strategies, retirement planning, business succession planning, wealth protection strategies, and estate planning. Essentially, wealth management looks at everything you need to address your various financial concerns at each stage of your life, from building your wealth for future goals like retirement to converting your wealth into a tax-efficient retirement income to transferring your wealth to the next generation.

One of the most important benefits of wealth management is that it's a coordinated approach. That means that you have one key advisor who links in experts from other areas. For example, RBC wealth advisors each specialize in different areas, such as investment management, financial planning, or private banking. But they work together to make sure their clients have the benefits of all of these different areas of expertise.

And at RBC, each of our wealth advisors also has the support of the RBC wealth management services team. The RBC wealth management services team has over 200 tax, legal, and financial experts all focused on helping RBC advisors manage their clients' wealth.

So what is wealth management? Ultimately, wealth management is really all about helping you make sense of the greater financial complexity you face and giving you greater confidence in your financial future. If you would like to learn more about how you can benefit from wealth management, I invite you to contact your RBC wealth management advisor.

As a business owner, it can be difficult to find the time to focus on your eventual exit from your business when you're focused on the success of your business, but investing the time now can pay important dividends later including a smoother transition and a well-funded retirement.

So how can you build a successful business succession plan?

First, consider your various exit options.

You may wish to keep your business in your family, but family dynamics can complicate things.

Often family businesses fail in the second generation, so make sure you carefully consider your family member’s ability to take on a leadership role.

If there is a potential leader in your family consider grooming them as soon as possible.

Another option is a management buyout.

Normally the management team already understands the business and is well-known to your customers and suppliers.

However, they may have limited personal cash, so you may need to offer a favorable purchase price or financing to close the deal.

A third exit option is selling to an existing business partner.

This can be an attractive option with a quick close, especially if you have a shareholders agreement in place which sets the terms for selling your business interest.

Finally, they're selling to a third party.

Generally., this is the best option for maximizing your sale price.

However, it may involve disclosing confidential information, in some cases to a competitor.

Whichever exit option you choose it's important to get ready in advance.

Here are a few things to consider to make your business more attractive to potential buyers.

Develop a deep and talented management team, expand and diversify your customer base, established consistent recurring and high-margin cash flow and lastly keep your information systems up to date.

Another important part of your business succession plan is your retirement plan.

For many business owners their business is their retirement plan, but often it can take longer than you'd like to sell your business or you may not get the price you thought you would so it's important to set some money aside outside your business for your retirement.

One way you can do this is to an individual pension plan or IPP.

An IPP is a special retirement plan for incorporated business owners.

It enables you to make higher contributions compared to an RRSP that are tax deductible to your business.

And finally make sure you have the right advisory team in place including your lawyer, accountant, banker and financial advisor.

To learn more about business,succession planning, I invite you to contact an RBC Wealth Management advisor today.

[Meet Sue and Drew RBC Wealth Management Clients]

[DREW:] Sue and I met at University. I was getting a coffee in the lounge and saw her and just fell in love. Just that simple.

[Drew and his partners recently sold their national network of veterinary hospitals “Calgary North Veterinary Hospital and Emergency Service”]

When the sale of the company came on there's a lot of things that came with that and taxes and creating trusts and things like that that you know aren't really our strength.

[SUE:] You're just relying on what you hear from friends, what you get online and you know, it's difficult because you're always worried you're going to miss something.

[DREW:] We had our goals. They were pretty roughed in goals. We didn't really know exactly how they would be actuated and the team pulled it together and sort of said, “Okay well if you want to do it, here’s the options.”

[VI LIVINIUK:] Drew and Sue sold their Veterinarian Practice.

So that meant that things on the financial front became a little more complicated, and they didn’t really know where to start.

[Vi Liviniuk, CIM, CFP, B.Ed. Vice President, Associate Portfolio Manager. RBC Dominion Securities Inc. RBC Wealth Management]

At that point it was important that would that I bring in all of my financial partners that are specialized in helping clients with different facets of their financial well-being. Whether it's a state planning, tax planning, insurance planning, right down to charitable giving.

[VAN THAI:]

[Van Thai, PFP. Private Banker. RBC Wealth Management]

If you're dealing with the advisor on investment front, and you dealing with me on the personal private banking front, it's just seamless. We are a team.

[Cody Cormier:]

[Cody Cormier, B.B.A. (Finance), LL.B., TEP Vice President, High Net Worth Planning Services RBC Wealth Management]

(Sue and Drew wanted to impart their values and beliefs to their son, but I suggested that they schedule annual family meetings and at that family meeting one of the things they could do is talk about philanthropy and setting up a private endowment fund inside a public foundation would be a good idea, and that endowment fund would generate income annually and it could get directed to the parents’ favorite charity or the son's favorite charity.

[DREW:] To have a fund that's of itself can can make its own wealth and not just be a stagnant donation every year that comes out of your general account. And it's doing quite well so that's also good for our charities.

[SUE:] Whenever we want to make a contribution, we just give them a call and it's all taken care of. We just have to give them the name of the charity and that's it.

[DREW:] It's a rewarding thing to put something together and then have it come through exactly how you envisioned it.

[SUE:] We have this team of people and they know us and they know what we want to do, what our goals are, what our aspirations are and I can’t say enough about it.

[UNKOWN WOMAN SPEAKING]

RBC Wealth Management is Canada's leading Wealth Manager. Our approach brings the best of RBC to you. Our resources solutions and full access to our team of experts, through one single contact, your Wealth Manager.

Simply put, there's wealth in our approach.

[Wealth Management Dominion Securities logo]

The need for tax-smart estate plan, has never been greater. With the massive baby boomer generation inheriting trillions of over the coming decades, and taxes on those inheritances likely to remain high. Here's some tips for creating your tax-smart estate plan. First of all, make sure your will is up to date, especially if there have been important changes in your life. Your will names your beneficiaries and your executor. Consider having an open discussion with your family, you may feel uncomfortable about doing this. But it can help your family understand your intentions, and what they might need to do. One of the things you may want to discuss with your family is your choice of executor.

It's an honor to be named an executor, but there are a lot of responsibilities. Make sure your chosen executor is comfortable with what they will have to do. And remember, you don't have to choose a family member. Especially if you have a complicated estate, it may make more sense to choose a professional executor. You may also want to discuss taking care of certain family members. Perhaps you have younger children or grandchildren that you want to provide for. You can leave them a bequest through a testamentary trust in your will, or you can create a family trust during your lifetime. Trusts have important tax advantages when they are properly structured. Let's assume your beneficiaries have no other income. For example, a minor child, they can earn about $10,000 of interest income tax free, every year on the assets you transfer into the trust.

Here's another way you can reduce the impact of taxes on your estate, with life insurance. Consider this, if you leave $300,000 in your RSP or riff when you pass away. Your estate may have to pay as much as nearly half of that in tax, that's nearly $150,000. Similarly, your estate may have to pay taxes on any capital gains on things like your investments, your cottage, and US property. With a life insurance policy, you can cover these taxes. It can be very cost effective because the insurance premiums are often just a fraction of the tax bill. As always, with insurance, it's most cost effective when you're younger and in good health. One last tip for creating a tax-smart estate, and it's important. Make sure you speak with a qualified legal professional first, before you put any estate planning strategies in place.