How much do you know about financial independence?

Posted by: Vikb

I'd love to see the expression on a CRA auditor's face when someone tells them they did "X" because they got tax advice from a stranger on a mountain bike forum and it sounded legit. ;-)

If you talk to an accountant they'll tell you the same as what I mentioned in regards rules around claiming business use of home expenses such as how you determine the amount you're allowed to claim

It's always nice to get a snarky comment from a mod tho in response to my post. If you feel there something factual wrong with my comments please share tho as I may have missed something.

Posted by: syncro

If you talk to an accountant they'll tell you the same as what I mentioned in regards rules around claiming business use of home expenses such as how you determine the amount you're allowed to claim

It's always nice to get a snarky comment from a mod tho in response to my post. If you feel there something factual wrong with my comments please share tho as I may have missed something.

I wasn't talking to you or about you in particular.

Posted by: Vikb

I wasn't talking to you or about you in particular.

lol - right, seeing as my post was the one talking about business use of home expenses and Kenny had an issue with it.

I'm sorry. It's not always about you. 

My post was a general comment on the fact getting financial advice on a mountain bike forum is kind of funny and people should verify information with a subject matter expert. If I wanted to comment on something you posted I would have quoted it. You'll note I did not and I did not comment on anything about home business expenses in particular. 

I don't know why you are itching for an argument, but I am not interested.

Posted by: Vikb

I don't know why you are itching for an argument, but I am not interested.

The very point of this whole thread is about giving (and getting) financial advice, advice which has been given by many people - yourself included. I'm not "itching" for an argument, but I think it's fair my statements get interpreted correctly instead of incorrectly or being taken out of context. Seeing as there has been multiple mentions of getting professional advice in this thread and considering the context of the last few posts, your comment definitely seemed to be aimed in my general direction.

I think what Kenny refers to is deducting the deprecation of the business use part of your house as capital cost allowance. The CRA link I posted earlier says:

"The capital gain and recapture rules will apply if you deduct CCA on the business use part of your home and you later sell your home."

Whether it applies to the whole house or only the claimed business part of it, I don't know, I'd assume the latter but that's just a guess. I also don't know if you can still deduct regular expenses like property tax, utilities, insurance etc. as a homeowner even if you decide not to claim any deprecation.

I rent so it doesn't apply to me and I can simply deduct part of my rent, hydro, internet, and tenant insurance as business-use-of-home expenses. Ah, renting, makes life so much easier! ;-)

Re: financial advice on a mountain bike forum: I've gotten some useful stuff out of this thread over the years, also a lot of unuseful stuff. That's how internet forums work, signal-to-noise ratio is low and you need to filter out the noise. I take the useful stuff as pointers to look into further. For tax stuff, I always start at the CRA website, often I can find everything I need to know right there.

Posted by: niels@nsmb.com

I also don't know if you can still deduct regular expenses like property tax, utilities, insurance etc. as a homeowner even if you decide not to claim any deprecation.

You can deduct business use of home expenses like property tax, maintenance, hydro, etc for the percentage of the home that is used for business even if you don't claim the CCA.  The link below is to a CRA page that explains in more detail what deductions are allowed as well as what's not allowed. It also has a link to a page with an example calculation. 

https://www.canada.ca/en/revenue-agency/services/tax/technical-information/income-tax/income-tax-folios-index/series-4-businesses/series-4-businesses-folio-2-deducting-business-expenses/income-tax-folio-s4-f2-c2-business-use-home-expenses.html

CCA is part of it as well. I'm not that interested in digging down deep into it as everyone's situation is different. I really just thought it was funny syncro was essentially suggesting people make a home business for tax purposes, and qualifying it as "financial advice". Anyone who owns a business knows that just straight up not actually a thing. 

There's a million reasons why that's not a thing, and many reasons why for me personally it's not worth doing, and I actually have a reasonable amount of business revenue. You can't just start an Etsy business or something and start writing off housing costs, it just doesn't work that way. 

For one thing whatever revenue the business makes you're probably going to pull out as dividends anyways, which while treated preferentially, still incur personal tax. All those cool write-offs against your housing only reduce the corporate tax load of your fake home business, which you only made so it could get tax benefits. You need to write off against something. 

By the time you do all that dancing around you'd be ahead of the game to just pick up some extra hours of work somewhere. 

There's some financial advice - set a goal and work hard. Yeah I sound like a boomer but the brute force method does work. No different than losing weight. Hard work, discipline, and perseverance go a long way.

Posted by: Kenny

CCA is part of it as well. I'm not that interested in digging down deep into it as everyone's situation is different. I really just thought it was funny syncro was essentially suggesting people make a home business for tax purposes, and qualifying it as "financial advice". Anyone who owns a business knows that just straight up not actually a thing. 

There's a million reasons why that's not a thing, and many reasons why for me personally it's not worth doing, and I actually have a reasonable amount of business revenue. You can't just start an Etsy business or something and start writing off housing costs, it just doesn't work that way. 

For one thing whatever revenue the business makes you're probably going to pull out as dividends anyways, which while treated preferentially, still incur personal tax. All those cool write-offs against your housing only reduce the corporate tax load of your fake home business, which you only made so it could get tax benefits. You need to write off against something. 

By the time you do all that dancing around you'd be ahead of the game to just pick up some extra hours of work somewhere. 

There's some financial advice - set a goal and work hard. Yeah I sound like a boomer but the brute force method does work. No different than losing weight. Hard work, discipline, and perseverance go a long way.

In my comments the tax benefits were a side benefit of running a home based business to supplement one's income. I also stated running it as a sole proprietorship, not as an incorporated business.  

Your interpretation of my comments is totally incorrect and what you're stating is a very, very different case than what I suggested.

So I hope nobody got caught holding SIVB.

Link on what happened if you're interested  - https://twitter.com/GRDecter/status/1633919731081125890

A quick google says no. I do hope this thread has taught everyone to not be a bagholder.

Vanguard Total Stock Market ETF (VTI) - Find objective, share price, performance, expense ratio, holding, and risk details.

Missing: sibv ‎|

https://www.sgtlaw.com/cases/allianzgi-structured-alpha-mutual-fund-class-action-litigation

Anybody here into Alpha Hedge funds?   Interesting read. 

TLDR: global insurance giant facing litigation over failed mutual funds that were advertised too good to be true.

https://www.sec.gov/news/press-release/2022-84

Defendants reduced losses under a market crash scenario in one risk report sent to investors from negative 42.1505489755747% to negative 4.1505489755747% -- by simply dropping the single digit 2. In another example, defendants “smoothed” performance data sent to investors by reducing losses on one day from negative 18.2607085709004% to negative 9.2607085709004% -- this time by cutting the number 18 in half. 

I didn't know this is how “hedging risk” is done!

Posted by: Stuminator

The Dalai Lama was asked what surprised him most.

He answered _hu_man, because he sacrifices his health in order to make money. Then he sacrifices his money to recuperate his health.

And then he is so anxious about the future, that he does not enjoy the present; the result being that he does not live in the present or the future; he lives as if he is never going to die & dies having never really lived.

Amazing Stuminator. Sunday morning coffee with the wife was talking about our Money Story

https://www.moneysense.ca/columns/a-rich-life/whats-your-money-story/

https://www.moneysense.ca/columns/a-rich-life/what-are-money-scripts/