What is a Scout Tax Evaluation?
The Scout Tax Evaluation is an in-depth review of your financial situation, which will determine ways to reduce your taxes, improve your investment results, and lower your interest payments. This evaluation includes:
- Credit Report
- Property Report
- Mortgage Assessment
- Investment Review
- Tax Review
Your evaluation will be presented in an easy to understand one-page summary. The summary will highlight our team’s recommendations and what you should do right now.
Initial Consultation
The first step in our evaluation process is to have an open conversation about your financial situation. During this consultation, we will discuss your financial goals and identify any areas of concern.
Information Gathering
To begin the evaluation, you will be asked to complete a client agreement and then we will collect the information we need to assess your financials, including photo ID, a recent pay stub, a property tax bill, a mortgage statement, and an investment statement. If you are self-employed or own an investment property, we will also need your T1 General.
Evaluation Findings
The final step in the process is a second meeting for our team to present their Scout Evaluation findings and review the results. We will discuss our proposed action plan for meeting your goals, next steps, and any additional suggestions
How We Can Help
Learn more about the ways that we can help you save on taxes.
Home Equity & RRSP Contributions
Did you know that your home equity can be used to catch up on RRSP contributions? If you’ve seen the value of your home increase over the past years, you may be able to refinance your mortgage and put the proceeds towards saving for your retirement.
This approach will not only help to diversify your investments, it will also reduce your taxable income. Maxing your RRSP contributions will reduce your taxable income significantly — and proper use of home equity is the key to this process. That’s how our team was able to help our clients, Boris and Bonnie.
The RRSP catch-up strategy helped them to diversify home equity into other investments, kick start their retirement savings, and save them over $204,000 in taxes over 5 years. The net impact was that they paid an after-tax cost of -2.58%. Yes, that a negative 2.58%. Read our case study on RRSP catch-ups here.
Borrowing to Invest
In order to deduct your mortgage interest from your annual taxes, you must satisfy two requirements:
- You must purchase an investment with the money that you borrow. This could be an investment property, a new business, stocks, bonds, etc.
- You must be able to show that your investment is generating income. This could be rent from a property, business revenue, or interest from investments.
If you have existing funds that you want to invest, it is better to use these funds to pay off your current mortgage. Then you can re-borrow what you planned to invest and qualify for an investment loan, making your interest payments tax deductible.
Discover how you can save on your taxes.