Many of my clients and friends still believe that there is inherent fairness in government programs. When I point out disparities in medical services, government contracts, municipal board decisions, welfare payments and the greatest of them all – taxation – they begin to acknowledge the painful reality that many government programs just aren’t fair.

Too often today, even in a democratic society like ours, it is still, “what you know”, “who you know” and “when you know” that determines one‘s success. While I cannot change program disparities or make them more equitable, I can help you avoid one – needless overpayment of taxes.

Without a doubt, taxation will be your greatest expense in retirement. Moreover, many of the things you are doing in your accumulation years (in the run up to retirement) are laying the groundwork for costly tax traps that will cost you a lot – and I mean a lot – of money later.

Few people realize that their drawdown years provide the greatest opportunity for strategic tax management because your cash flow comes from so many different sources. The Canada Revenue Agency won’t tell you how to do it, but the reality is that if you take a strategic approach to how you drawdown your savings and access your various assets and income sources, it can add hundreds of thousands of incremental dollars to your lifetime cash flow and assets.

One of our core business strengths at Retirement Navigator^™ is the proven ability to help clients navigate the tax system by using our proprietary financial modelling tools to build effective individual retirement drawdown strategies. Our ultimate goal? To show you how you can make your money work harder and last longer, by helping you minimize the taxes you will pay over the balance of your life.

To demonstrate the magnitude of the impact of the pitfalls and opportunities in tax planning and income drawdown, we developed the Tax Game which shows how different tax strategies and drawdown executions can impact your financial worth. (You can play it when you sign up – it‘s free.)

Take a moment to explore the game and you will see how some strategies drive up your tax rate and create clawbacks from entitlements, while other strategies keep rates lower and extend the life of your assets. You’ll quickly see how better planning leads to better results, while helping you avoid expensive tax traps.

Now is the time to start protecting yourself from needless overpayment. Tax planning starts early and runs long. With a little knowledge and a little help, you can keep more of your money during retirement so you can do more and worry less.

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