Your chance to ask an accountant a question

Sometimes the questions I'm asked by the readers of this blog are more suited to an accountant than a lawyer. Now you have a chance to ask an experienced Canadian accountant your questions! Mark Goodfield, author of the Blunt Bean Counter blog, will be holding an online session tomorrow with the Globe and Mail, and you can send in your questions. Click here to learn more.

Make Things Easier for Your Family and Executor(s)...Designate Personal Effects in Your Will

This article from Mark Goodfield, aka The Blunt Bean Counter, is a must-read for anyone planning their wills. I'd also recommend it to executors who are wondering how on earth they are supposed to divide up personal effects with no guidance from the will.

The article covers the area of personal effects and household goods of the deceased, a mine field of problems and struggles if not properly covered in the will.

Click here to read the article.

Another tool that we can use to help out our families and executors is a Memorandum of Personal Effects, or as most people refer to it, a "list". I am referring to a hand-written list of names of family members together with the items you would like them to receive upon your death. This is a popular idea, but has its drawbacks, so you must make sure you are doing yours correctly if you want it to be a help and not a further cause of strife.

A Memorandum is often confusing because the deceased forgot that it was going to be read by someone who isn't a mind-reader. Some of the most common causes of confusion are:
- referring to "my favourite ring" or "my mother's earrings" or some other characteristic of an item that nobody will be able to identify;
- referring to "my necklace" when there are several necklaces;
- referring to the beneficiary as "Joe", when the deceased has an uncle named Joseph, a cousin named Joseph Jr., and a nephew named Joey;
- including items that cannot be included in a Memorandum, such as sums of money or real estate. Including these items may turn your Memorandum into a will, may revoke your current will, and definitely cause even more confusion for your family.

The best idea is to ask your lawyer about the Memorandum at the time you are making your wills, and to receive some instructions and ideas from him or her.

RRSP/RRIF spousal transfers on death - not so automatic

Warning! This post talks about tax. I realize that not everyone finds tax information as interesting as I do, but it's important stuff for all of us.

I'm attaching a link to a blog post by accountant Mark Goodfield, better known as The Blunt Bean Counter. In this post he talks about the transfer of an RRSP or a RRIF from a deceased spouse to a surviving spouse. You might be surprised to find that a spouse can choose simply to take the funds outright rather than receive the funds into his or her own RRSP or RRIF. If that happens, the estate may end up paying the tax.

Click here to read the article, which is very readable and contains tons of good information.

Income tax on inheritance

Are you wondering about a potential tax hit if you inherit money or property? If so, you're not alone. This remains one of the consistently asked questions here on this blog. Today I'm linking you to a blog post by Mark Goodfield, a Toronto accountant also known as The Blunt Bean Counter. To read his post about income tax on inheritances in Canada, click here.

Purchasing a vacation property in the US

Many Canadians are thinking about buying vacation homes in the USA. If you're one of them, would you be interested in knowing what a Canadian accountant with 25 years of experience might say about it? If so, click here to read this article by Mark Goodfield, an accountant who blogs at http://www.thebluntbeancounter.com/ . Photo from http://www.dreamstime.com/ .