When market and financial bubbles finally burst, their consequences are often severe and long lasting.
I've watched the price of stock investments like optical equipment manufacturer JDSU, one of the high tech darlings of the 2000 bubble era decline precipitously - it is currently down 99% from when I bought it and that was not its peak.
Even the strong tech companies of today have not recovered to anywhere near their levels of that time. The Cisco stock I bought in 2000 is currently not even worth a third of its purchase price. The best performing tech company I still own - Nokia - has gone back up to barely over half its purchase price. How long will it be, another decade before previous highs are again achieved?
On the human side, the July 2007 research study by Marc Frenette of Stats Can titled "Life after the High-tech Downturn: Permanent Layoffs and Earnings Losses of Displaced Workers" documents an equally grim picture. This excerpt from the Abstract says it all:
"... the high-tech downturn resulted in a sudden and dramatic increase in the probability of experiencing a permanent layoff, which quadrupled in the manufacturing sector from 2000 to 2001. Ottawa–Gatineau workers in the industry were hit particularly hard on this front, as the permanent layoff rate rose by a factor of 11 from 2000 to 2001. Moreover, laid-off manufacturing high-tech workers who found a new job saw a very steep decline in earnings. This decline in earnings was well above the declines registered among any other groups of laid-off workers, including workers who were laid off during the ‘jobless recovery’ of the 1990s. Among laid-off high-tech workers who found a new job, about four out of five did not locate employment in high-tech, and about one out of three moved to another city. In Ottawa–Gatineau, about two in five laid-off high-tech workers left the city."
We have yet to see how the popping of the credit bubble plays out but we should not be surprised if the financial and human turmoil is severe. Maybe people in the financial industry should have a look at a copy of Anita Caputo and Lee Wallace's book Learn to Bounce (see my review), in which the authors show how to respond positively to the unemployment challenge when the kind of jobs they have been used to doing simply disappear.
Friday, 28 March 2008
Thursday, 27 March 2008
Educational Homogamy - What It Is and Why It Matters
Never heard of the word "homogamy" before? I must admit neither had I till today despite many years in schools and a fair penchant for reading.
It's time to memorize this word (and for Blogger to add the word to its spell-check dictionary), which in the phrase "educational homogamy" means "the tendency of men and women with the same level of education to be married to one another".
Why is it important? ... because educational homogamy has been increasing steadily for the last three decades in both Canada and the United States - more and more people marry within their educational level such as university grads marrying university grads - and couples with university education have higher family income. More than half of young Canadian and American adults now marry someone of their own educational level. All this is laid out in the Stats Can research study The Changing Role of Education in the Marriage Market by Feng Hou and John Miles of May 2007. When I think about my family and friends, the above findings hold true more or less in every case.
Now I may be confusing effect and cause but it therefore seems to me that this study offers more evidence that advocating to one's kids to undertake advanced education will be good for them. Mind you, the study does not look at whether marriage breakdown rates are higher amongst people who marry above or below their 'educational class'.
Here's a telling quote from the study: "... well-educated men and women tend to marry one another and form families with high earnings and few risks of unemployment. Less well-educated couples have lower wages, and both partners are far more likely to experience periods without work." And so we have another cool phrase to drop into conversations - earnings homogamy!
The de facto social discrimination that has emerged is not religion, creed, colour, race, ethnic origin, age or sex, it's education! Imagine that, the school system as the new class differentiator. Think of the implications: How will the government stamp that out? Should people in those speed dating events start by asking "how far did you go in school?"
I must fess up to being felicitously educationally and pecuniarily homogamous, as well as being culinarily and aesthetically homogamous, though I am only partially recreationally homogamous and definitely not televisionally so (Coronation Street, arrgghhhh!).
It's time to memorize this word (and for Blogger to add the word to its spell-check dictionary), which in the phrase "educational homogamy" means "the tendency of men and women with the same level of education to be married to one another".
Why is it important? ... because educational homogamy has been increasing steadily for the last three decades in both Canada and the United States - more and more people marry within their educational level such as university grads marrying university grads - and couples with university education have higher family income. More than half of young Canadian and American adults now marry someone of their own educational level. All this is laid out in the Stats Can research study The Changing Role of Education in the Marriage Market by Feng Hou and John Miles of May 2007. When I think about my family and friends, the above findings hold true more or less in every case.
Now I may be confusing effect and cause but it therefore seems to me that this study offers more evidence that advocating to one's kids to undertake advanced education will be good for them. Mind you, the study does not look at whether marriage breakdown rates are higher amongst people who marry above or below their 'educational class'.
Here's a telling quote from the study: "... well-educated men and women tend to marry one another and form families with high earnings and few risks of unemployment. Less well-educated couples have lower wages, and both partners are far more likely to experience periods without work." And so we have another cool phrase to drop into conversations - earnings homogamy!
The de facto social discrimination that has emerged is not religion, creed, colour, race, ethnic origin, age or sex, it's education! Imagine that, the school system as the new class differentiator. Think of the implications: How will the government stamp that out? Should people in those speed dating events start by asking "how far did you go in school?"
I must fess up to being felicitously educationally and pecuniarily homogamous, as well as being culinarily and aesthetically homogamous, though I am only partially recreationally homogamous and definitely not televisionally so (Coronation Street, arrgghhhh!).
Wednesday, 26 March 2008
Canadian Investing in the UK? Caution on Dividends and Taxes
If you are an expat Canadian working or living in the UK but still subject to Canadian taxes because of ties to Canada and you are in a lower tax bracket, such as up to $72k in taxable income, then it might be wise not to invest in UK investments that pay dividend income ... unless you don't mind paying extra taxes. Here how and why this happens.
The first thing to note is that in the UK 10% tax (termed a tax credit) is automatically deducted from dividends paid out, no matter what tax bracket you are in, or whether you are a UK taxpayer or a foreign tax payer. The amount cannot be reclaimed or recovered, whether you are a native in the nil rate band, or you hold the investment in a tax-exempt account like an ISA or a PEP, or you are a foreigner considered to be a tax resident of another country under terms of a Double Taxation Convention like the Canada-UK treaty I wrote about yesterday.
The second factor at play for a Canadian is the fact that dividends are taxable at a much lower rate for the lower tax brackets than is the case in the UK. I have made a comparative chart of 2008 rates (modified in the February Canadian federal budget) for an Ontario taxpayer.
(Thanks to TaxTips.ca for the basic info on Canada. The UK rates, as updated following the March 2008 budget are from the HMRC page on Rates and Allowances.) Note the areas highlighted in green under the dividends column where the Canadian rates are lower than those of the UK.
Thus if you intend to obtain income from dividends on ordinary or preferred shares and you are not a higher rate taxpayer, then there is a tax penalty from investing through the UK stock exchange. For the highest rate expat Canadian taxpayer, with more than $75k in taxable income, there is no significant tax penalty since the maximum UK withholding tax on dividends is only 15% according to the Canada-UK Convention, Here is a table I have compiled of the various types of income and how they are handled in the treaty.
Of course, there is also no tax advantage since you must report your worldwide income and you must therefore pay Canadian tax on UK investments if the Canadian calculation works out to more than the 10% already paid at source in the UK. There will always be a minor penalty since 10% of whatever tax is owing is paid immediately instead of following the completion of the tax year, which means the money cannot be used for the extra length of time.
The first thing to note is that in the UK 10% tax (termed a tax credit) is automatically deducted from dividends paid out, no matter what tax bracket you are in, or whether you are a UK taxpayer or a foreign tax payer. The amount cannot be reclaimed or recovered, whether you are a native in the nil rate band, or you hold the investment in a tax-exempt account like an ISA or a PEP, or you are a foreigner considered to be a tax resident of another country under terms of a Double Taxation Convention like the Canada-UK treaty I wrote about yesterday.
The second factor at play for a Canadian is the fact that dividends are taxable at a much lower rate for the lower tax brackets than is the case in the UK. I have made a comparative chart of 2008 rates (modified in the February Canadian federal budget) for an Ontario taxpayer.
(Thanks to TaxTips.ca for the basic info on Canada. The UK rates, as updated following the March 2008 budget are from the HMRC page on Rates and Allowances.) Note the areas highlighted in green under the dividends column where the Canadian rates are lower than those of the UK.
Thus if you intend to obtain income from dividends on ordinary or preferred shares and you are not a higher rate taxpayer, then there is a tax penalty from investing through the UK stock exchange. For the highest rate expat Canadian taxpayer, with more than $75k in taxable income, there is no significant tax penalty since the maximum UK withholding tax on dividends is only 15% according to the Canada-UK Convention, Here is a table I have compiled of the various types of income and how they are handled in the treaty.
Of course, there is also no tax advantage since you must report your worldwide income and you must therefore pay Canadian tax on UK investments if the Canadian calculation works out to more than the 10% already paid at source in the UK. There will always be a minor penalty since 10% of whatever tax is owing is paid immediately instead of following the completion of the tax year, which means the money cannot be used for the extra length of time.
Tuesday, 25 March 2008
International Double Taxation Dangers - Canada and the UK
One of the worst headaches of relocating to another country to work or retire is the overlapping and duplication of taxation and the insanely complex rules governing this area. If you think tax rules in one country are bad enough, try figuring out those of two countries and how they inter-act. On top of that some determinations are based on fuzzy and slippery concepts such as residence and domicile that rely in part on your own intentions, as interpreted by tax authorities.
Take the example of someone going from Canada to the UK. It is entirely possible to end up being taxable in both countries with respect to various taxes like those on employment income, interest, dividends and capital gains. Most taxation is based on Residence. Note the spelling with a capital "R". It is a proper noun, indicating it has a specific defined meaning in the eyes of HMRC (the UK tax collector) and CRA (the Canadian tax authority), though amusingly or frustratingly, their definitions come from court cases that have had to interpret the natural lower case meaning of residence. Of course Residence is only the starting point since in the UK, the concepts of Ordinary Residence and Domicile also determine what taxes are payable by whom. It so happens that Canada's meaning of Residence is based on different criteria than the UK's (are you surprised?).
In Canada, it is ties to the country that count, such as having a permanent place to live, a spouse and dependants as the most important factors and any number of other secondary ties like bank accounts, club or union memberships. This is laid out in the CRA's bulletin IT-221R3 Determination of an Individual's Residence Status. You can be absent and not set foot in the country for 20 years and still be a Resident. That makes you subject to taxation on your worldwide income.
In the UK, the basic rule for Residency is whether you have spent 183 days or more in the country in a particular year. This is explained in HMRC's IR20 Residents and Non-Residents.
Enter the Canada-UK Double Taxation Convention, supposedly to eliminate the conflict according to its sub-title "For the Avoidance of Double Taxation". It has a different set of rules for deciding where you are Resident, resembling those of Canada through such tests as where one has a permanent home and where the centre of one's vital interests lie. The Convention is a critical document because it takes precedence over other laws in each country that may state something different or be in conflict with its provisions. (That this is so was confirmed by a call to the HMRC Inheritance Tax helpline at 0845 302 0900 and in the Zurich Tax Handbook 2006-07 on page 633).
The recent UK budget announced a change whereby non-domiciled but resident individuals who have been in the UK at least seven years out of the last ten will be taxable on their worldwide income unless they pay a £30,000 fee to be allowed to continue to be taxed only on income that is remitted to the UK (which has been the standard rule up to now). However, if you are also a tax Resident of another country like Canada, and its tie-breaker rules put you in Canada, then the new budget measures have no effect. Whew!
It is also true alas that the Double Taxation Convention does not make you a total non-taxpayer in the "non-resident" country. Note article 4 paragraph 1 which states, "For purposes of this Convention, the term "resident of a contracting state" means ...". In other words, you are non-resident of the other state only for purposes of the Convention and the taxes it covers. You are still a Resident and subject to any other taxes it does not cover. In the case of Canada and the UK, a significant such tax is Inheritance Tax (IHT). The Canada-UK Convention makes no mention of IHT, no doubt because such a tax does not exist in Canada. Thus, any UK rules about IHT might apply to a Canadian who is non-resident in other respects under the Convention.
The key for IHT is whether you are Domiciled in the UK, which is where you have your "permanent home " according to HMRC. (Thankfully you can only have one Domicile at a time). Living for many years in another country doesn't automatically change your domicile according to HMRC's IR20 on page 22 ... unless you happen to have been Resident for 17 of the last 20 years, in which case you automatically acquire "Deemed Domicile" in the UK (see HMRC's FAQ on Domicile and IHT). That will make your worldwide assets subject to IHT, which covers not just death duties but gifts as well. Imagine someone dieing as a Canadian tax Resident but also as a UK Deemed Domicile. The deemed disposition and final return income inclusion of all retirement account holdings, likely at the highest marginal tax rate in Canada could be double-whammied by IHT at 40% for amounts over the zero rate/exemption amount of £312,000. Despite a principal residence being tax-exempt in Canada, that is not so with respect to IHT in the UK, so a Canadian house would be taxable in the UK. One could end up with a huge tax bill, leaving little for inheritances.
For those former UK residents who emigrated to Canada and then return later to the UK, perhaps upon retirement, they might be considered never to have changed domicile in the first place and become subject to IHT immediately upon return.
Canada and the UK are not the only countries with double taxation treaties. Where other countries also levy inheritance taxes, there may by provisions in the bilateral treaty that address IHT. The HMRC Customer Guide on IHT (isn't the terminology charming? - "Customer" guide) lists countries like the USA where the treaty includes IHT. The Telegraph article Inheritance Tax Abroad; taxmen sans frontières warns of the unanticipated consequences of inheritance laws in favoured retirement locales like France and Spain.
There are hundreds of bilateral treaties between countries (almost all are based on the OECD model treaty), most very similar but with slight variations which can be critical. They sustain a thriving industry for tax accountants who can advise on the consequences and make suggestions for minimizing the damage if at all possible. The Institute of Chartered Accountants of England and Wales has a good list with links to treaties of major countries. All of Canada's are listed on a Department of Finance page - see the In Force section. The UK's are listed here and the HMRC DT Digest is a handy table of key types of income and the rates applied in all the countries with treaties with the UK.
Take the example of someone going from Canada to the UK. It is entirely possible to end up being taxable in both countries with respect to various taxes like those on employment income, interest, dividends and capital gains. Most taxation is based on Residence. Note the spelling with a capital "R". It is a proper noun, indicating it has a specific defined meaning in the eyes of HMRC (the UK tax collector) and CRA (the Canadian tax authority), though amusingly or frustratingly, their definitions come from court cases that have had to interpret the natural lower case meaning of residence. Of course Residence is only the starting point since in the UK, the concepts of Ordinary Residence and Domicile also determine what taxes are payable by whom. It so happens that Canada's meaning of Residence is based on different criteria than the UK's (are you surprised?).
In Canada, it is ties to the country that count, such as having a permanent place to live, a spouse and dependants as the most important factors and any number of other secondary ties like bank accounts, club or union memberships. This is laid out in the CRA's bulletin IT-221R3 Determination of an Individual's Residence Status. You can be absent and not set foot in the country for 20 years and still be a Resident. That makes you subject to taxation on your worldwide income.
In the UK, the basic rule for Residency is whether you have spent 183 days or more in the country in a particular year. This is explained in HMRC's IR20 Residents and Non-Residents.
Enter the Canada-UK Double Taxation Convention, supposedly to eliminate the conflict according to its sub-title "For the Avoidance of Double Taxation". It has a different set of rules for deciding where you are Resident, resembling those of Canada through such tests as where one has a permanent home and where the centre of one's vital interests lie. The Convention is a critical document because it takes precedence over other laws in each country that may state something different or be in conflict with its provisions. (That this is so was confirmed by a call to the HMRC Inheritance Tax helpline at 0845 302 0900 and in the Zurich Tax Handbook 2006-07 on page 633).
The recent UK budget announced a change whereby non-domiciled but resident individuals who have been in the UK at least seven years out of the last ten will be taxable on their worldwide income unless they pay a £30,000 fee to be allowed to continue to be taxed only on income that is remitted to the UK (which has been the standard rule up to now). However, if you are also a tax Resident of another country like Canada, and its tie-breaker rules put you in Canada, then the new budget measures have no effect. Whew!
It is also true alas that the Double Taxation Convention does not make you a total non-taxpayer in the "non-resident" country. Note article 4 paragraph 1 which states, "For purposes of this Convention, the term "resident of a contracting state" means ...". In other words, you are non-resident of the other state only for purposes of the Convention and the taxes it covers. You are still a Resident and subject to any other taxes it does not cover. In the case of Canada and the UK, a significant such tax is Inheritance Tax (IHT). The Canada-UK Convention makes no mention of IHT, no doubt because such a tax does not exist in Canada. Thus, any UK rules about IHT might apply to a Canadian who is non-resident in other respects under the Convention.
The key for IHT is whether you are Domiciled in the UK, which is where you have your "permanent home " according to HMRC. (Thankfully you can only have one Domicile at a time). Living for many years in another country doesn't automatically change your domicile according to HMRC's IR20 on page 22 ... unless you happen to have been Resident for 17 of the last 20 years, in which case you automatically acquire "Deemed Domicile" in the UK (see HMRC's FAQ on Domicile and IHT). That will make your worldwide assets subject to IHT, which covers not just death duties but gifts as well. Imagine someone dieing as a Canadian tax Resident but also as a UK Deemed Domicile. The deemed disposition and final return income inclusion of all retirement account holdings, likely at the highest marginal tax rate in Canada could be double-whammied by IHT at 40% for amounts over the zero rate/exemption amount of £312,000. Despite a principal residence being tax-exempt in Canada, that is not so with respect to IHT in the UK, so a Canadian house would be taxable in the UK. One could end up with a huge tax bill, leaving little for inheritances.
For those former UK residents who emigrated to Canada and then return later to the UK, perhaps upon retirement, they might be considered never to have changed domicile in the first place and become subject to IHT immediately upon return.
Canada and the UK are not the only countries with double taxation treaties. Where other countries also levy inheritance taxes, there may by provisions in the bilateral treaty that address IHT. The HMRC Customer Guide on IHT (isn't the terminology charming? - "Customer" guide) lists countries like the USA where the treaty includes IHT. The Telegraph article Inheritance Tax Abroad; taxmen sans frontières warns of the unanticipated consequences of inheritance laws in favoured retirement locales like France and Spain.
There are hundreds of bilateral treaties between countries (almost all are based on the OECD model treaty), most very similar but with slight variations which can be critical. They sustain a thriving industry for tax accountants who can advise on the consequences and make suggestions for minimizing the damage if at all possible. The Institute of Chartered Accountants of England and Wales has a good list with links to treaties of major countries. All of Canada's are listed on a Department of Finance page - see the In Force section. The UK's are listed here and the HMRC DT Digest is a handy table of key types of income and the rates applied in all the countries with treaties with the UK.
Thursday, 20 March 2008
When to Move Back to Canada from the UK?
A reader asks a question:
"I'm currently a non-resident of Canada living in the UK, but I am thinking of moving back to Canada later this year. I just have a question with regards to when I would be considered UK resident for tax purposes by the Canadian Revenue Agency? Would they use the 183-day rule? And would that apply from the beginning of the UK Tax Year (April 6th) or the Canadian Tax Year (Jan 1st)?
"I'm currently a non-resident of Canada living in the UK, but I am thinking of moving back to Canada later this year. I just have a question with regards to when I would be considered UK resident for tax purposes by the Canadian Revenue Agency? Would they use the 183-day rule? And would that apply from the beginning of the UK Tax Year (April 6th) or the Canadian Tax Year (Jan 1st)?
The reason why I ask is that I have my own company in the UK and wish to take a large dividend payment out after April 6th of this year, so that it will count in next years UK tax year. I also don't want to be considered a Canadian Resident for the next tax year since they will tax this dividend payment as world-wide income if I am."
Take this for what it's worth since I am not a certified tax expert but here goes:
1) each country applies applies its own rules independently without considering the other unless there is a conflict when a person is considered resident in both countries simultaneously, in which case the terms of the Canada-UK Double Taxation Treaty with 2003 Amendments come into play to resolve the conflict;
2) Canada judges residency based on when you establish ties, not the length of time in the country in a tax year, so visiting Canada for one week and buying a house might trigger that date of entry as the date determining residence even if you spent the rest of the year in the UK - a house and a spouse/dependents in the country are key ties, as explained in the Canada Revenue Agency bulletin on Determination of an Individual's Residence Status IT-221-R3;
3) the UK judges residency based on being in the UK 183 days or more in a tax year; note that the UK is about to change the rule, as soon as the latest budget is passed, so that the date of departure (or arrival for incomers) will now count as a day in the UK; as of now day of arrival or departure do not count in the 183 days
4) you cannot be resident nowhere at any time with respect to tax, you will always be resident at least in one country, sometime two at the same time - the double taxation treaty you will notice also has an objective to prevent the avoidance of taxation and it allows the CRA and HMRC to enquire about you from each other;
Bottom Line: Your CRA/Canadian tax liability would only arise for amounts received after you established residence, so you only have to make sure you receive the dividend before the date of arrival in Canada when you establish those ties (it's the date of arrival not the date of buying the house or whatever); you would then be taxed in the UK and report that income on the UK return not the Canadian one (actually I'm not 100% sure that you might not have to report it on the Canadian return and then claim an exemption; a tax accountant would have to say how exactly to report it). It would be easiest to leave the UK before 183 days have passed from April 6 onwards to avoid the double taxation rules and the tie-breaker provisions that might end up with you being considered resident of the wrong country at the time of the dividend payment.
I presume that you would also have checked out the relative tax rates and figured out that it is better to receive the dividend in the UK and not Canada. Dividends are taxed more in the UK for higher rate taxpayers (taxable income >£36,000 in for 2008/2009). Canadian tax rates on dividends are lower for all except the narrow income range from $72-76k. Speak to an accountant to confirm your position.
Take this for what it's worth since I am not a certified tax expert but here goes:
1) each country applies applies its own rules independently without considering the other unless there is a conflict when a person is considered resident in both countries simultaneously, in which case the terms of the Canada-UK Double Taxation Treaty with 2003 Amendments come into play to resolve the conflict;
2) Canada judges residency based on when you establish ties, not the length of time in the country in a tax year, so visiting Canada for one week and buying a house might trigger that date of entry as the date determining residence even if you spent the rest of the year in the UK - a house and a spouse/dependents in the country are key ties, as explained in the Canada Revenue Agency bulletin on Determination of an Individual's Residence Status IT-221-R3;
3) the UK judges residency based on being in the UK 183 days or more in a tax year; note that the UK is about to change the rule, as soon as the latest budget is passed, so that the date of departure (or arrival for incomers) will now count as a day in the UK; as of now day of arrival or departure do not count in the 183 days
4) you cannot be resident nowhere at any time with respect to tax, you will always be resident at least in one country, sometime two at the same time - the double taxation treaty you will notice also has an objective to prevent the avoidance of taxation and it allows the CRA and HMRC to enquire about you from each other;
Bottom Line: Your CRA/Canadian tax liability would only arise for amounts received after you established residence, so you only have to make sure you receive the dividend before the date of arrival in Canada when you establish those ties (it's the date of arrival not the date of buying the house or whatever); you would then be taxed in the UK and report that income on the UK return not the Canadian one (actually I'm not 100% sure that you might not have to report it on the Canadian return and then claim an exemption; a tax accountant would have to say how exactly to report it). It would be easiest to leave the UK before 183 days have passed from April 6 onwards to avoid the double taxation rules and the tie-breaker provisions that might end up with you being considered resident of the wrong country at the time of the dividend payment.
I presume that you would also have checked out the relative tax rates and figured out that it is better to receive the dividend in the UK and not Canada. Dividends are taxed more in the UK for higher rate taxpayers (taxable income >£36,000 in for 2008/2009). Canadian tax rates on dividends are lower for all except the narrow income range from $72-76k. Speak to an accountant to confirm your position.
Wednesday, 12 March 2008
The Integrity of Financial Services Professionals in Canada, the UK and the USA
The results of the mini survey are in and evidently readers of this blog don't think highly (we Canadians are prone to under-statement!) of the integrity of financial services professionals in Canada. With 28% giving a fat zero out of five, more than the total of 27% who gave 3 or better, it would seem that the industry has a lot of improvement to make. Mind you, folk who DIY their finances may be somewhat more antagonistic to the industry than most people.
I had promised to show the results of surveys done of the financial services industry rating itself, so here goes. The source of the surveys is the CFA Institute, which manages and awards the Chartered Financial Analyst designation and whose About US includes this statement: "We promote the highest ethical standards..." What is interesting and useful is that the CFA Institute conducted the same survey in the three countries of Canada, the UK and the USA giving real comparative data. The complete surveys, all dated May 2007, are available for download in their Publications page.
What do the surveys say? You will likely not be surprised to learn that these folks rating their own industry think they are doing ok - on a scale of 1 (lowest) to 5, the ratings for all three countries are generally in the 3-4 range. But there are some amusingly revealing quotes ... from the US survey "... sell-side analysts themselves thought more of their ethical behavior than did survey respondents who were not sell-side analysts." Perhaps also not so surprising, hedge funds and private equity everywhere do a lot less well than the industry as a whole - from the UK survey, "Mirroring the concerns of other markets, individuals show the least confidence in ethical integrity of hedge fund and private equity practitioners." Their rating is everywhere in the 2s - below the adequate level. And remember, this is from people who are less likely to slam them.
In both Canada and the USA, people working inside the country thought less well of their ethics than those outside. Is this modesty? Or do outsiders not see the dirt? In the UK, it's the opposite - insiders think better of themselves than outsiders. Maybe they are right since the UK scores better across every sub-category of the survey, whether its themselves or outsiders doing the rating. The UK gets the silver medal (no one gets above 4 so no one deserves gold)! Canada gets bronze by a hair and the USA is out of the medals. The USA is let down by its people ratings - those hedge fund managers, corporate boards and corporate executives.
Choice quotes from the surveys:
“Overall, compensation is prime motive for money managers as opposed to client interest. Some managers are more ethical than others.” — Sell-Side Analyst (Canada)
“Hedge funds and private equity are so different—your question cannot be answered.” — Plan Sponsor (Canada)
“Fiduciary duty is required. Fee disclosure needs to be mandatory. Education gap in financial planning’ sector needs to be addressed.” — Investment Consultant (Canada)
“It seems like that in most firms, ethics are not a focus. This is especially true when ethics are at odds with firm profits.” — Investment Consultant (USA)
“I believe most market participants have high ethical qualities, but some aspects of, and participants in, the industry do not always work in their clients’ best interest.” — Financial Advisor/Wealth Manager (under "Positive Comments" in the US survey)
Ethics, like charity, begins at home. The CFA has a fine looking Code of Ethics and Standards of Conduct, which includes sanctions for violations up to the loss of the CFA designation. I wonder how many disciplinary actions have been imposed lately.
I had promised to show the results of surveys done of the financial services industry rating itself, so here goes. The source of the surveys is the CFA Institute, which manages and awards the Chartered Financial Analyst designation and whose About US includes this statement: "We promote the highest ethical standards..." What is interesting and useful is that the CFA Institute conducted the same survey in the three countries of Canada, the UK and the USA giving real comparative data. The complete surveys, all dated May 2007, are available for download in their Publications page.
What do the surveys say? You will likely not be surprised to learn that these folks rating their own industry think they are doing ok - on a scale of 1 (lowest) to 5, the ratings for all three countries are generally in the 3-4 range. But there are some amusingly revealing quotes ... from the US survey "... sell-side analysts themselves thought more of their ethical behavior than did survey respondents who were not sell-side analysts." Perhaps also not so surprising, hedge funds and private equity everywhere do a lot less well than the industry as a whole - from the UK survey, "Mirroring the concerns of other markets, individuals show the least confidence in ethical integrity of hedge fund and private equity practitioners." Their rating is everywhere in the 2s - below the adequate level. And remember, this is from people who are less likely to slam them.
In both Canada and the USA, people working inside the country thought less well of their ethics than those outside. Is this modesty? Or do outsiders not see the dirt? In the UK, it's the opposite - insiders think better of themselves than outsiders. Maybe they are right since the UK scores better across every sub-category of the survey, whether its themselves or outsiders doing the rating. The UK gets the silver medal (no one gets above 4 so no one deserves gold)! Canada gets bronze by a hair and the USA is out of the medals. The USA is let down by its people ratings - those hedge fund managers, corporate boards and corporate executives.
Choice quotes from the surveys:
“Overall, compensation is prime motive for money managers as opposed to client interest. Some managers are more ethical than others.” — Sell-Side Analyst (Canada)
“Hedge funds and private equity are so different—your question cannot be answered.” — Plan Sponsor (Canada)
“Fiduciary duty is required. Fee disclosure needs to be mandatory. Education gap in financial planning’ sector needs to be addressed.” — Investment Consultant (Canada)
“It seems like that in most firms, ethics are not a focus. This is especially true when ethics are at odds with firm profits.” — Investment Consultant (USA)
“I believe most market participants have high ethical qualities, but some aspects of, and participants in, the industry do not always work in their clients’ best interest.” — Financial Advisor/Wealth Manager (under "Positive Comments" in the US survey)
Ethics, like charity, begins at home. The CFA has a fine looking Code of Ethics and Standards of Conduct, which includes sanctions for violations up to the loss of the CFA designation. I wonder how many disciplinary actions have been imposed lately.
Tuesday, 11 March 2008
A Dozen Tax Savings Tips for Canadians on the 2007 Return
Have started working on my 2007 tax return and noticed this handy list of tax saving tips called Tax Savings for Everyone on the Canada Revenue Agency website. It includes 12 items that many people could use, like the Children's Fitness deduction, the Public Transit deduction, the Tradesperson's Tool deduction, the Textbook deduction for students, Pension Income Splitting. The list is easy to scan and has links to explanations so that you can figure out if you are eligible.
Monday, 10 March 2008
Bumpy Landing Ahead in the UK for the Caisse de Dépôt?
Our massive Canadian pension funds like the Ontario Teachers, the Ontario Municipal Employees and the Caisse de Dépôt nowadays routinely look beyond the public equity markets to invest Canadians' pension savings. They get into private equity deals and buyouts, such as the current hot item, the takeover of BCE by the Ontario Teachers.
Back in 2006, the Caisse was a minority partner (a 29% stake) in the buyout of BAA plc, which runs a bunch of UK airports, including Heathrow, Gatwick and Stanstead around London and Glasgow, Edinburgh and Aberdeen in Scotland. The deal was led by an ambitiously expanding Spanish company Ferrovial. The words "ambitiously expanding" should give you the clue to what comes next and what explains the looming problem. Yup, you guessed right, the deal was largely financed with the cheap debt available at the time, about £9 billion worth, or $18 billion CAD (give or take a few hundred million depending on the exchange rate). The buyout consortium is snowed under by debt! Unfortunately, debt doesn't eventually melt like snow does.
Now the new owners are finding out that leverage is risky, as the bursting of the credit bubble means they cannot find cheap financing, their borrowing costs are going up and there is no prospect of reasonable terms in the next few years when the bulk of the refinancing will need to happen. The gory details are well laid out in this posting on the Aviation blog. (I love the posting's likening of Heathrow to "the only building site in Britain with its own airport" - amusing and all too true.) As the article relates, BAA's debt rating is now at junk level. How the debt problem will get resolved is not yet clear amongst the possibilities of sale of some airports, cuts in the capital expenditures, or new equity injections. Whatever the way out, the original partners, the Caisse among them, will end up losing. How much of a hit the Caisse ends up taking is an open question. BBC economics editor Robert Peston speculates that the buyout consortium's equity stake could even get wiped out. So far, nothing on the Caisse website or in the annual report even mentions BAA apart from the original announcement of the deal; maybe they aren't worried about the c.$5 billion at stake given their $155 billion in assets, or maybe they haven't noticed BAA among the 3000 companies it boasts of having invested in around the world.
In aviation terms, the Caisse is on a plane bound for the UK. There is very bad weather awaiting at destination but the plane must land eventually and it hasn't enough fuel to divert to another airport.
I'd guess the bottom line for air travellers will be slower construction and continued chaos that causes so much discomfort and delay. The presence of regulators to limit BAA's charges to customers (like airlines) will hopefully prevent the costs from being passed too quickly to consumers but eventually we end up carrying the can when such essential facilities run into trouble.
Back in 2006, the Caisse was a minority partner (a 29% stake) in the buyout of BAA plc, which runs a bunch of UK airports, including Heathrow, Gatwick and Stanstead around London and Glasgow, Edinburgh and Aberdeen in Scotland. The deal was led by an ambitiously expanding Spanish company Ferrovial. The words "ambitiously expanding" should give you the clue to what comes next and what explains the looming problem. Yup, you guessed right, the deal was largely financed with the cheap debt available at the time, about £9 billion worth, or $18 billion CAD (give or take a few hundred million depending on the exchange rate). The buyout consortium is snowed under by debt! Unfortunately, debt doesn't eventually melt like snow does.
Now the new owners are finding out that leverage is risky, as the bursting of the credit bubble means they cannot find cheap financing, their borrowing costs are going up and there is no prospect of reasonable terms in the next few years when the bulk of the refinancing will need to happen. The gory details are well laid out in this posting on the Aviation blog. (I love the posting's likening of Heathrow to "the only building site in Britain with its own airport" - amusing and all too true.) As the article relates, BAA's debt rating is now at junk level. How the debt problem will get resolved is not yet clear amongst the possibilities of sale of some airports, cuts in the capital expenditures, or new equity injections. Whatever the way out, the original partners, the Caisse among them, will end up losing. How much of a hit the Caisse ends up taking is an open question. BBC economics editor Robert Peston speculates that the buyout consortium's equity stake could even get wiped out. So far, nothing on the Caisse website or in the annual report even mentions BAA apart from the original announcement of the deal; maybe they aren't worried about the c.$5 billion at stake given their $155 billion in assets, or maybe they haven't noticed BAA among the 3000 companies it boasts of having invested in around the world.
In aviation terms, the Caisse is on a plane bound for the UK. There is very bad weather awaiting at destination but the plane must land eventually and it hasn't enough fuel to divert to another airport.
I'd guess the bottom line for air travellers will be slower construction and continued chaos that causes so much discomfort and delay. The presence of regulators to limit BAA's charges to customers (like airlines) will hopefully prevent the costs from being passed too quickly to consumers but eventually we end up carrying the can when such essential facilities run into trouble.
Tuesday, 4 March 2008
Integrity of the Financial Services Industry
The observant reader will note in the right column a new survey asking your opinion of financial services professionals. When the survey closes in a week, I will contrast the results with some interesting reading I came across today where financial services professionals rate themselves in Canada, the US and the UK. Should be fascinating, huh?
So enter your vote and remember, be fair!
So enter your vote and remember, be fair!
Monday, 3 March 2008
An All-Equity Portfolio? .. further thoughts
The admonition that we should all think of ourselves and our investments in a very broad fashion including our own ability to make money (termed human capital) and how we do it is one idea I am finding to be extremely helpful. Not long ago, blogger Michael James had been trying to answer the very good question, "why not have an all-equity portfolio?" since equities outperform fixed income in the long run.
One answer comes in the form of this article For Long Term Investors, the Focus Should Be on Risk by the same Zvi Bodie and Paul Hogan (though it is not part of the book). The answer there boils down to the fact that investment returns are not evenly distributed through time so that an 8% compounded return can have enormously and perhaps disastrously different end values for the investor who puts in (pre-retirement phase) or withdraws (retirement) money each year.
The second answer comes from consideration of one's other sources of income in life. If your job is highly correlated with the stock market, then an all-equity portfolio is extremely dangerous since everything will implode at once. I learned this the hard way by having four and a half years of retirement savings wiped out at the same time I got laid off by Nortel since I had invested the voluntary retirement plan contributions in Nortel stock. On the other hand, someone like my relatives who are in education (job security and completely unrelated to the stock market) with an inflation-indexed, generous defined benefit pension plan should not put a penny into fixed income investments and should put it all in equities. Mind you, then we face the other issue of personal financial planning - the teachers are totally risk averse and don't want to go into equities at all and many of the tech industry workers I know are too keen on equities!
One answer comes in the form of this article For Long Term Investors, the Focus Should Be on Risk by the same Zvi Bodie and Paul Hogan (though it is not part of the book). The answer there boils down to the fact that investment returns are not evenly distributed through time so that an 8% compounded return can have enormously and perhaps disastrously different end values for the investor who puts in (pre-retirement phase) or withdraws (retirement) money each year.
The second answer comes from consideration of one's other sources of income in life. If your job is highly correlated with the stock market, then an all-equity portfolio is extremely dangerous since everything will implode at once. I learned this the hard way by having four and a half years of retirement savings wiped out at the same time I got laid off by Nortel since I had invested the voluntary retirement plan contributions in Nortel stock. On the other hand, someone like my relatives who are in education (job security and completely unrelated to the stock market) with an inflation-indexed, generous defined benefit pension plan should not put a penny into fixed income investments and should put it all in equities. Mind you, then we face the other issue of personal financial planning - the teachers are totally risk averse and don't want to go into equities at all and many of the tech industry workers I know are too keen on equities!
Free Download Book: The Future of Life Cycle Saving and Investing by various top-notch thinkers
For those with a bent for looking one level below the surface and gaining deeper understanding, check out The Future of Life Cycle Saving and Investing, a compilation of papers presented at a conference back in 2006. The papers address subject matter described in the Foreword as this: "Life-cycle finance is the branch of finance that affects everybody. It deals with the questions faced by individuals seeking to get ahead: How much should I save, and what should I invest in to build wealth? When I retire or if I become unemployed, how much of my savings can I spend each year? Is there something I can do to make sure I do not outlive my savings? What can my spouse and children expect to inherit?" You can download the entire 209 page book for free from the CFA Institute on this webpage. Authors include Nobel prize winners such as Paul Samuelson and Robert Merton and many leading academics, not least of which is Zvi Bodie, one of the editors and contributors.
So far, I've only read through Paul Samuelson's witty keynote, which includes a number of juicy quotes and trenchant observations. It is not technical and is accessible for a lay reader. Indeed, the intent of the conference was to translate theory into practical advice and solutions for individuals. I do not need to read the whole book to recommend it since it meets my principles of choosing - go for the best and go for the source. These authors are the equivalent of Wayne Gretzky giving us advice on hockey and Tiger Woods telling us how to play golf.
A delightful presentation of some of the big book's ideas in a nutshell (in fact, that's where I found the link to the book) can be found at Paula Hogan's Financial Management website in the article entitled What's New with Human Capital.
So far, I've only read through Paul Samuelson's witty keynote, which includes a number of juicy quotes and trenchant observations. It is not technical and is accessible for a lay reader. Indeed, the intent of the conference was to translate theory into practical advice and solutions for individuals. I do not need to read the whole book to recommend it since it meets my principles of choosing - go for the best and go for the source. These authors are the equivalent of Wayne Gretzky giving us advice on hockey and Tiger Woods telling us how to play golf.
A delightful presentation of some of the big book's ideas in a nutshell (in fact, that's where I found the link to the book) can be found at Paula Hogan's Financial Management website in the article entitled What's New with Human Capital.
Sunday, 2 March 2008
Exchange Rates at a Glance
If you have taken the plunge and put some of your investment portfolio into other countries through international ETFs like VPL, VWO, VGK, EFA and so on, you may already have noticed that the movement of the currency of the foreign countries has as much or more of an effect, either positive or negative, on your net home currency portfolio value as the actual market returns in that foreign country.
For Canadian investors looking abroad, the situation lately has been decidedly negative as the Canadian dollar has appreciated against every major currency around the globe. That's one major reason why my portfolio, whose structure is shown at the bottom of this blog, is down from its initial investment value of May 2007.
There is a great website called RatesFX where you can obtain a visualization of your own currency against all others. I've copied a screenshot for the Canadian dollar for the past year.
Note how the chart is almost completely blue - in other words, just about everything has gone down against the mighty CAD. Among economies of any size, only the Brazilian real has gone up. A neat feature of the live website is that when you hover your mouse cursor over the currency symbol, it shows the country and the actual percentage change so you can find out immediately that KRW stands for South Korean won and it has declined 17.54% in the last year. The other tabs show what has happened over the last day, 3 months or 3 years. In the case of the CAD, the 3 month chart shows a break in the pattern of CAD strength. The USD has still been going down but the euro and the Japanese yen have been going up, a good thing for my portfolio (e.g. a constant value of JPY buys more CAD, which is what I spend).
It is more normal that other currencies do not all move together going up or down against the CAD. Check out table 4 Comovements from the UBC Sauder School of Business (my Alma Mater of long ago!) Pacific Exchange Rate Service website, where it shows that the USD only seems to move with the GBP and the JPY about a third or less of the time. That gives me some reassurance that my portfolio will not continue to go down from currency effects but instead will gain the benefit of volatility reduction from currency diversification.
For the US investor with international holdings, the picture is quite the opposite to Canada. Everywhere the USD has been weakening (see the red chart) and portfolio gains from the currency shift will have been quite juicy.
For the UK investor the story has been mixed - strength against the USD, weakness against the euro, so the effects on a portfolio would depend on its exact makeup and proportions.
The RateFX website features a ton of other useful information, such as statistical indicators of whether a currency's volatility is increasing or decreasing - the CAD seems to be increasing and thus risk is going up - along with predictions for near future ranges of a currency's value against others.
There is an extensive list of resources and links relating to foreign exchange, including some money transfer services. The only thing it seems not to have is links to foreign currency trading sites but there are plenty of those in the Google ads on the website's sidebars.
For Canadian investors looking abroad, the situation lately has been decidedly negative as the Canadian dollar has appreciated against every major currency around the globe. That's one major reason why my portfolio, whose structure is shown at the bottom of this blog, is down from its initial investment value of May 2007.
There is a great website called RatesFX where you can obtain a visualization of your own currency against all others. I've copied a screenshot for the Canadian dollar for the past year.
Note how the chart is almost completely blue - in other words, just about everything has gone down against the mighty CAD. Among economies of any size, only the Brazilian real has gone up. A neat feature of the live website is that when you hover your mouse cursor over the currency symbol, it shows the country and the actual percentage change so you can find out immediately that KRW stands for South Korean won and it has declined 17.54% in the last year. The other tabs show what has happened over the last day, 3 months or 3 years. In the case of the CAD, the 3 month chart shows a break in the pattern of CAD strength. The USD has still been going down but the euro and the Japanese yen have been going up, a good thing for my portfolio (e.g. a constant value of JPY buys more CAD, which is what I spend).
It is more normal that other currencies do not all move together going up or down against the CAD. Check out table 4 Comovements from the UBC Sauder School of Business (my Alma Mater of long ago!) Pacific Exchange Rate Service website, where it shows that the USD only seems to move with the GBP and the JPY about a third or less of the time. That gives me some reassurance that my portfolio will not continue to go down from currency effects but instead will gain the benefit of volatility reduction from currency diversification.
For the US investor with international holdings, the picture is quite the opposite to Canada. Everywhere the USD has been weakening (see the red chart) and portfolio gains from the currency shift will have been quite juicy.
For the UK investor the story has been mixed - strength against the USD, weakness against the euro, so the effects on a portfolio would depend on its exact makeup and proportions.
The RateFX website features a ton of other useful information, such as statistical indicators of whether a currency's volatility is increasing or decreasing - the CAD seems to be increasing and thus risk is going up - along with predictions for near future ranges of a currency's value against others.
There is an extensive list of resources and links relating to foreign exchange, including some money transfer services. The only thing it seems not to have is links to foreign currency trading sites but there are plenty of those in the Google ads on the website's sidebars.
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