“Welcome to the PlanEasy blog! We make personal finance easy.
Thanks for visiting.”
– Owen
Canada Child Benefit: The Hidden Tax Rate
Children are expensive. There are the obvious expenses like day care, clothing, food and diapers. Then there are the not so obvious expenses like owning a larger home or a larger car.
For low and moderate income earners, there is a special benefit called the Canada Child Benefit (CCB) that can help offset some of these expenses.
The benefit starts at a maximum of $6,500/year for each child under 6 and $5,400/year for each child between 6 and 17.
These amounts get reduced as soon as a family’s taxable income passes $30,000. For someone with two children under 6 the benefit disappears entirely once the family income crosses $207,000.
Because the child benefit gets clawed back for each incremental dollar in taxable income. It works essentially the same as a tax rate. Except its effect is slightly hidden.
Guess How Many Of Us Feel Financial Stress?
A lot. That’s how many.
Last year 64% of millennials said that they feel stressed about their finances!*
Financial stress impacts us more than any other stress factor. More than our family, more than our health, more than our job, we stress about money the most.
This isn’t too surprising.
Money is at the center of everything we do. Without money, we can’t survive. In the past, it was possible to get by without money. You could barter, trade, do it yourself. But in the 21st century that’s not realistic. Are you going to build your own smart phone? Everyone needs money.
Because everyone needs money everyone is at risk of feeling financial stress. But it doesn’t have to be that way. Here are five ways to reduce your financial stress.
Banks Are Biased, Especially When Advertising Mutual Funds
Banks are biased. That’s obvious. Banks are public companies in the business of making money and therefore are biased towards activities that produce a profit. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing but when making personal finance decisions it’s good to keep this top of mind.
This bias is especially apparent when banks advertise their mutual funds. They use a few different forms of bias to make their products look extra appealing.
Everyone has probably seen a mutual fund advertisement. It’s the one with the line that keeps growing towards the sky. It usually says how $10,000 invested 10 years ago could have grown into $xxx,xxx today.
There are a couple of problems with this advertisement.
Owen Winkelmolen
Advice-only financial planner, CFP, and founder of PlanEasy.ca
“Welcome to the PlanEasy blog! We make personal finance easy.
Thanks for visiting.”
– Owen
New blog posts weekly!
Tax planning, benefit optimization, budgeting, family planning, retirement planning and more...
Canada Child Benefit: The Hidden Tax Rate
Children are expensive. There are the obvious expenses like day care, clothing, food and diapers. Then there are the not so obvious expenses like owning a larger home or a larger car.
For low and moderate income earners, there is a special benefit called the Canada Child Benefit (CCB) that can help offset some of these expenses.
The benefit starts at a maximum of $6,500/year for each child under 6 and $5,400/year for each child between 6 and 17.
These amounts get reduced as soon as a family’s taxable income passes $30,000. For someone with two children under 6 the benefit disappears entirely once the family income crosses $207,000.
Because the child benefit gets clawed back for each incremental dollar in taxable income. It works essentially the same as a tax rate. Except its effect is slightly hidden.
Guess How Many Of Us Feel Financial Stress?
A lot. That’s how many.
Last year 64% of millennials said that they feel stressed about their finances!*
Financial stress impacts us more than any other stress factor. More than our family, more than our health, more than our job, we stress about money the most.
This isn’t too surprising.
Money is at the center of everything we do. Without money, we can’t survive. In the past, it was possible to get by without money. You could barter, trade, do it yourself. But in the 21st century that’s not realistic. Are you going to build your own smart phone? Everyone needs money.
Because everyone needs money everyone is at risk of feeling financial stress. But it doesn’t have to be that way. Here are five ways to reduce your financial stress.
Banks Are Biased, Especially When Advertising Mutual Funds
Banks are biased. That’s obvious. Banks are public companies in the business of making money and therefore are biased towards activities that produce a profit. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing but when making personal finance decisions it’s good to keep this top of mind.
This bias is especially apparent when banks advertise their mutual funds. They use a few different forms of bias to make their products look extra appealing.
Everyone has probably seen a mutual fund advertisement. It’s the one with the line that keeps growing towards the sky. It usually says how $10,000 invested 10 years ago could have grown into $xxx,xxx today.
There are a couple of problems with this advertisement.
Join over 250,000 people reading PlanEasy.ca each year. New blog posts weekly!
Tax planning, benefit optimization, budgeting, family planning, retirement planning and more...
Join over 250,000 people reading PlanEasy.ca each year. New blog posts weekly!
Tax planning, benefit optimization, budgeting, family planning, retirement planning and more...