Blog
Questions people actually ask.
Same subjects as the guides, approached from wherever the question came up rather than from the top of the topic. Plainer, longer, and more willing to admit where the answer is "it depends".
My broker's book value doesn't match my adjusted cost base
The number on your statement and the number the CRA expects are calculated differently, and on a fund paying return of capital they drift apart every single year. Yours is the one that has to be right.
Does a Canadian-listed S&P 500 fund escape US withholding tax?
Holding a TSX-listed US equity fund inside your RRSP feels like it should get you the treaty exemption. It does not, and the reason is worth understanding before you build a portfolio around it.
Is a 15% yield too good to be true?
Not necessarily fake, but almost never what it appears. Here is how to take a very high Canadian distribution apart and work out whether you are being paid income or handed your own money back.
March 2020 — three rate cuts in 23 days
The Bank of Canada took the policy rate from 1.25% to 0.25% inside a single month. For income investors the lesson was not about rates at all; it was about which distributions held and which did not.
I filed my taxes and then a T3 showed up
Trust-structured funds report later than the filing habits most people have, and amended slips are routine. Here is why it happens, what to do about it, and how to stop it happening again.
The year the TFSA limit was $10,000 — and then wasn't
For one year the annual contribution limit nearly doubled, and the following year it was rolled back. The room from that year was never taken away, which is why cumulative TFSA arithmetic trips people up a decade later.
What the 2022–2023 rate cycle did to borrowed dividend strategies
Canadian prime went from 2.45% to 7.20% in sixteen months. Anyone running a leveraged income position watched a comfortable spread invert, and the sequence is worth studying because nothing about it was announced in advance.
Why did my ETF pay less this month?
A distribution that drops without warning is alarming and usually not a cut. Here are the six ordinary reasons the number moves, and the one that genuinely is worth worrying about.