Loading...
The Rural Voice, 1990-02, Page 18Would you like to discuss Retirement Planning? PROFESSIONAL INSURANCE REPRESENTATIVES WATKINS, DAUGHERTY & ASSOCIATES LICENSED INTERMEDIARIES FOR IMPERIAL UFE Estate Planning, Business Insurance, Group Benefits, RRSPs, RRIFs, Annuities, Disability Insurance, Retirement Planning, Equity Funds The Imperial Life Assurance Company of Canada 305 King Street West, Suite 609 Kitchener, Ontario N2G 1 B9 LUCKNOW: LISTOWEL: KITCHENER: 528-3514 291-5040 744-5281 CANADIAN CO-OPERATIVE WOOL GROWERS LIMITED WOOL CLIPS PURCHASED 500 per ib. * Skirted Fleeces * Well Packed Sacks PROMPT PAYMENT For more information contact: RIPLEY WOOL DEPOT John Farrell R.R. 3, Ripley, Ontario 519-395-5757 14 THE RURAL VOICE WISE MOVES Financial Strategies for Farmers Bob Watkins "Wise Moves" is a series of articles pro- vided by Watkins, Daugherty & Associ- ates. Taking as a case study the farm of "Martin Wise," financial experts Richard Daugherty and Bob Watkins outline vari- ous ways that farmers can enhance their financial planning and security. Your questions and comments are wel- come: telephone Bob in Lucknow 528- 3514, Richard in Listowel 291-5040, or Kitchener (Imperial Life regional office) 744-5281.0 SPOUSAL RRSPs While our insurance represen- tative was over talking to my father about retirement income (see The Rural Voice, January 1990), I decided to ask some questions about retire- ment planning myself. It seemed to me that Dad was go- ing to get a lot of income in retirement while Mom was going to receive just her old age pension. This meant that Dad was going to be in a high income tax bracket and Mom would pay no tax at all. Our representative agreed that this was not only a common prob- lem, but one that can be corrected while contributing to RRSPs. The sol- ution is income splitting. This simply means that the husband and wife should each have the same amount of money coming in when they retire. It also means that less tax is paid. Mary and I could see his point, but Mary had no earned income and so could not contribute to a Registered Retirement Savings Plan. It was then that our representative introduced us to Spousal RRSPs. You see, I can contribute to an RRSP in Mary's name and she will own the money immedi- ately. This means that when she re- tires she can use it to produce income for herself. I can still only contribute 20 per cent of my earned income to a maximum of $7,500, but I can put any part of that into a plan for Mary. Richard Daugherty This made good sense, so we set up a spousal plan for Mary by arrang- ing for $100 to be transferred auto- matically from our bank account to the insurance company every month. Our representative remarked that, without realizing it., we had taken the first step in developing a retirement plan for ourselves. Now there were other things to consider, such as how much money we would need to live on in retirement and where it would come from. We had already decided it was not a good idea to sell the farm to pro- duce retirement income. Also, Mary would not be receiving benefits from the Canada Pension Plan because she had not contributed to it. With the help of our representative, we calculated the amount of money we would have to save monthly to get the income we will need. This formed the basis of our retirement planning, and he also suggested that we review and update this plan regularly to make sure we stay on track. Retirement planning is not complicated, but we were glad we had our representative to counsel us on the best approach to take for our own particular situation. By the way, did you know that the cash value in a whole life insurance policy grows tax deferred, similar to that of an RRSP? It is an effective way to split income as well.0