Insurance · Investments · Tax Strategy — Richmond Hill & Aurora, ON
We find the leaks first — then build the structure that stops them: this year, at retirement, and when everything passes on. Peace of mind, by the numbers.
Where tax is quietly draining you — corporate and personal, this year and at exit.
Move money to where it compounds untaxed and stays in your control.
To your family — tax-free where the law allows, outside probate, as you intend.
For business owners
They look like four separate problems. They're usually one structure, planned badly — or not at all.
Taking it out means 40%+ personal tax. Leaving it invested quietly erodes your small business rate once investment income passes $50,000. Both doors have a toll — most owners pay one without knowing it.
See the fix → 02The day you die, your shares are taxed as if you sold them — whether or not anyone has the cash. Unfunded, that bill can force your family to sell the business just to pay it.
See the fix → 03Selling your business can be tax-free up to $1.25M+ per shareholder — but investments piling up inside the company can disqualify you years before the sale. Most owners find out at the deal table.
See the fix → 04The 2018 rules ended casual dividend-splitting with family. What still works is narrow and documentation-heavy — and sometimes the right person to do it is your accountant, not me. I'll tell you which.
See the fix →No corporation? Families & retirement
Employees and professionals at the top bracket are taxed hardest of all — 53.53% on the margin in Ontario, RRSP and TFSA full, and a retirement where the government quietly claws back your pension. The leaks have different names. The planning is the same discipline.
Check your retirement tax →The Tax Lab
Every figure comes from public tax rules and is computed live in your browser. No email. No phone number. We never see what you enter.
Drag your retained earnings and yield. Watch the $50,000 line — and what crossing it costs you every year.
Set your expected retirement income. See your tax, your OAS clawback, and the real marginal burden on the next dollar.
Your tax rate, your investment type, your expected return — charted year by year against a real policy. Honest in both directions.
Your income, your province (ON/BC/AB), your dental and medical spend — paying personally vs the corporate HSA route, with 2026 rates.
The same corporate profit, two roads to your pocket — taxed nothing alike. CPP on both sides, RRSP room and the honest verdict included.
An RRSP defers tax — it doesn't erase it. Project the forced RRIF withdrawals after 71, and the real rate once the OAS clawback stacks on top.
How we work
Every file starts with your numbers — corporate and personal, this year and the year you exit. The tool is chosen by the problem. Never the other way around.
Map your tax picture: income structure, retained earnings, future capital gains, the bill your estate would face today. It starts with a free 30-minute conversation — numbers only.
Decide where money should live and how it should move — between you, your company, your family and your estate. On complex files, our partner tax lawyer and CPA join the table.
A compensation redesign. A trust or estate freeze. An insurance or segregated fund structure. A high-interest corporate account. Or, sometimes, nothing at all.
Fair warning
Not every tax problem needs a product. When the fix is a payroll change your accountant can file on Monday, I'll say so — and send you back to them. Plans that survive scrutiny are the only kind worth writing.
What planning changes
The calculators measure the leaks. Here is what plugging them looks like — same tax rules, read in your favour. No projections, no promises: every number below is a mechanism you can verify. Peace of mind, by the numbers.
Growth inside certain insurance contracts doesn't count as passive investment income. Repositioning $1.5M of corporate investments can restore your full small business rate — recovered annually, with no market risk.
How it works → Business owners — at transferMoney normally leaves a corporation as dividends taxed up to 47.74% in Ontario. Insurance proceeds credit the Capital Dividend Account and leave tax-free — on a $2M benefit, roughly $950K your family keeps instead of paying.
How it works → High earners — in retirementIn the clawback zone your next dollar is taxed at 58%+. Income drawn from the right containers — TFSA, policy-secured bank loans — doesn't count against the line at all. Same spending money, different shape: about $8,800/yr preserved.
How it works → The obvious objectionIf your returns are taxed as interest at the top bracket, matching one real policy's cash value takes 10.4% a year, every year, for 42 years. If they're deferred capital gains, the bar drops to 5.6% — and then the tax-free death benefit changes the math again.
Test your portfolio — LAB 03 →MBA, Ivey Business School · Schulich Award · B.A. & M.A. Economics, Xiamen University · former Unilever · founder & board member, multiple companies
Wealthi is a founder-run practice. Every conversation is with me — no handoffs, no juniors learning on your file.
When your plan calls for a trust, an estate freeze, or a corporate reorganization, my partner tax lawyer and CPA join the table — each holding their own pen. And everything we publish follows one discipline: write plainly, cite sources, never oversell. If a strategy has a weakness, you'll read it here first. More about the practice →
Client voices
Reviews from clients of the practice; individual results vary. Case studies live in the Library.
Book a Tax Diagnostic
Good plans don't bet on a rate staying put — they're built to survive a change of government. The first thirty minutes are free: your situation, our method, no products pitched. Complex files quote a planning fee up front — you'll know before we start.
// the only variable in this plan that gets more expensive every year is your age