Insurance Planning for Business with Zachary Goldman | E007
How corporations, and owners, are taxed.
Summary:
In this 7th episode of Financial Planning for Canadian Business Owners, Jason Pereira, award-winning financial planner, university lecturer, writer, and host interviews Zak Goldman, Managing Partner of Sterling Park Financial Group in Toronto, Canada. Sterling Park is one of the more better-known high-end insurance operations in Canada. Zak and Jason discuss why business owners need to consider insurance and the key benefits of it.
Episode Highlights:
● 01:25: – Zak Goldman introduces himself and what he does.
● 07:20: – Zak talks about some of the frustrations with the insurance Industry.
● 09:44: – Sterling Park has seven people in their office which isn’t usual for an insurance firm.
● 11:23: – Insurance will be a tool to do financial planning.
● 14:26: – The vast majority of investment advisors are giving incorrect advice.
● 15:24: – Why does insurance work?
● 16:58: – Large tax bills often can’t be paid because the liquidity isn’t available.
● 19:07: – What are some of the basic use cases for insurance for business owners?
● 19:52: – The most common and easiest use of insurance is for a partnership.
● 23:33: – Why is insurance and tax planning so important for when you die?
● 27:30: – Insurance in a corporation is not to be used for an insured retirement plan.
● 32:18: – Make sure whoever is doing your financial planning are doing comparisons.
● 35:00: – Provide value to your client.
● 38:26: – Insurance policies can be tax shelters while you are alive.
● 41:08: – Corporate capital grows tax-free and at death gets paid out tax-free.
● 43:30: – At Sterling Park, you can’t take the corporate asset and get a personal loan against it.
3 Key Points
1. The average insurance advisor in Canada is $37,000-$49,000 in gross income that they have to run their business out of.
2. Insurance is a payment that happens on a periodic basis that leads to a much larger payment later on that is tax-free.
3. Zak Goldman says that Insurance is benefitting two groups: widows and orphans.
Tweetable Quotes:
● “If we can open people’s eyes to insurance and not that cheesy, salesy way, but actually a factual number-based analysis. That’s why we do it and I think that’s why we have success in doing it.” – Zak Goldman
● “This industry doesn’t hold itself up to the standards that it should. People do not have the expertise, the backgrounds, the letters behind their name.” – Zak Goldman
● “Tax and mortality. Those are two things that make insurance work.” – Zak Goldman
Resources Mentioned:
● Facebook – Jason Pereira’s
● LinkedIn – Jason Pereira’s
● FintechImpact.co – Website
● jasonpereira.ca – Website
● Linkedin – Zak Goldman’s
● Sterlingparkgrp.com – Website
● Linkedin – Sterling Park Financial Group
Full Transcript:
Speaker 1: Welcome to the Financial Planning for Canadian Business Owners Podcast. You will hear about industry insights with award-winning financial planner and entrepreneur, Jason Pereira. Through the interviews with different experts with their stories and advice, you will learn how you can navigate the challenges of being an entrepreneur, plan for success, and make the most of your business and life, and now, your host, Jason Pereira.
Jason Pereira: Hello, and welcome to the Financial Planning for Canadian Business Owners Podcast, I'm your host, Jason Pereira. Today on the show, I'm going to interview Zak Goldman, managing partner of Sterling Park. Zak and Goldman Park are one of the better known high-end insurance operations in Canada. I brought him into discuss why business owners need to consider insurance, and the key benefits of it. With that, here's my interview with Zak. Hello, Zak.
Zak Goldman: What's going on?
Jason Pereira: Well, you're here for a podcast, that's what's going on.
Zak Goldman: Well, I'm very excited. It is actually my first podcast.
Jason Pereira: Well, great. This is your podcast virginity being broken.
Zak Goldman: It's very exciting.
Jason Pereira: I'm taking it.
Zak Goldman: I don't want to ... it's probably a family show so I'm not going to elaborate on that.
Jason Pereira: This went sideways, okay, so no, no. So Zak Goldman, you're managing partner of Sterling Park. Zak is a very well-known insurance expert in Canada, and one of the top performers that I've come across, if not in the country period. I brought him in to discuss various topics surrounding insurance and business. Why don't you give us a little bit about your background, and the company and what it does?
Zak Goldman: I'm one of those strange people that actually got into insurance early on. We always find insurance people, it's a second career and there's ... no, I'm not putting that down, but at the age of 24 I actually said I want to go to the insurance business. I quickly realized there were voids in the market, and that those voids were ... I wasn't really sure how advice was being given, and if the advice wasn't always in the best interest of the client, and quickly realized that I wanted to create a firm that there's not many like. What we did, what we've created as a firm in Toronto that has, not only insurance expertise, but we have tax expertise, and finance expertise. We take those individual skillsets, and we put that together, and we build what I'll say is very applicable, strong insurance strategies for our clients.
Zak Goldman: There is three insurance guys in the office, as well as my partner who is a former tax lawyer, and it really adds just a tremendous amount of, I'll say ... I was going to say value to the clients, but it's actually value to us. It's amazing to have that, and it's a great resource, and I'd say we're probably the only firm in the city that has this, but I could be wrong.
Jason Pereira: You're the most sophisticated setup I've come across, so there's my endorsement.
Zak Goldman: I think that sophistication is because there was such a lack of sophistication in the market.
Jason Pereira: Agreed.
Zak Goldman: And people were given advice in very-
Jason Pereira: But in fairness, let's be honest, you're not a mass market person, like you're not ... your structure is not built for the average [inaudible 00:02:53] employee earning 60,000 a year looking to insure their mortgage. You're catering toward the top of the food chain, specifically around business owners who have the most complex needs.
Zak Goldman: Certainly, and you've nailed it right on the head. What happened is we knew right at the beginning, when we started to build this, I started working with the mass market, and I wanted a firm ... I realized the business owners were the ones that, as you know as we were talking about before we just started this, are the ones who are the backbone of the country, but continue to be the ones that are being-
Jason Pereira: Picked on lately.
Zak Goldman: Picked on, pressed. I just, I wait to the next budget, and we will see what happens, but it's the business owners. So if we can open people's eyes to insurance, and not that cheesy salesy way, but actually a factual number-based analysis-
Jason Pereira: Evidence-based way. Yeah, no, it makes sense.
Zak Goldman: That's why we do it, and I think that's why we have success in doing it, but that's who we work with. We will literally work with 25 families/business owners in a year developing their insurance strategies.
Jason Pereira: Yeah, and some of that directly, some of that with other advisers like myself collaboratively. Honestly, I think what I love about your approach is that you are as evidence-based as I've seen. You guys analyze all of it, the entire situation, show them what the world looks like without insurance, come up with the entire plan, and show them how in many ways what people think is an expense ends up being a massive ROI when you factor in the way things move.
Zak Goldman: I love what you just said. Many people think it's an expense.
Jason Pereira: Absolutely.
Zak Goldman: I have spent years sitting in meetings where people go, "Oh, it costs so much," and early on in my career someone said, "But compared to what?" I think that's what the evidence-based approach is.
Jason Pereira: Exactly.
Zak Goldman: Yeah, insurance has a premium, but there is other alternatives, and if people don't always understand those alternatives it can be detrimental to their ... with the business they've built, the real estate they hold. I'll give you a quick example, I was a ... think of a family that we're working with, they have, this is a third generation real estate family, they have a tax bill. To give some background they have put some plan in place, there is an estate freeze that had taken place on the parents, the children had some growth, and when I say some growth understand, and I think anybody that's on real estate in the last 10 to 15 years [crosstalk 00:05:08], some growth is massive growth.
Jason Pereira: Yeah, double, triple.
Zak Goldman: They had a tax liability of $45 million.
Jason Pereira: The parents did or their kids?
Zak Goldman: The kids. No, the kids are-
Jason Pereira: That's a pretty effective freeze.
Zak Goldman: The kids, let's be quite frank the kids are not kids, and the kids are 50 to 60 years old.
Jason Pereira: So now they're looking at wanting to pass on the real estate empire [crosstalk 00:05:27] to their kids, yup.
Zak Goldman: But how do they pay the tax? The reality was $45 million of tax is once it's out it's cash, if I have cash or I'll sell an asset, it's not $45 million.
Jason Pereira: No.
Zak Goldman: You're going to get that money out of your company, and as we all know you have to take a dividend, you have to sell your assets-
Jason Pereira: You have to pay tax just to get the money out to pay the tax, which is just the most frustrating part of it all.
Zak Goldman: Which is I will say the smartest business people I know still sort of, they know that's there, but they forget that it's there. These individuals when we were doing some planning, and we don't think insurance is the be-all and end-all, but when we gave them their alternatives, this is what their alternatives was, it was the pay dividend out of the corporation, I'd say ... They're going to sell their assets, and pay a dividend out of the corporation, we had figured that was going to be about $65 million to $70 million. They're going to take cash out of the corporation. They're going to take a dividend again, we thought that was going to cost them. This is all to net the $45 million, it was going to cost them $60 million, and then we could do an insurance strategy, and it was going to cost them six, but you want to hear the craziest thing? Let's call it for argument's sake.
Jason Pereira: Let's be clear, $6 million over the expected lifespan of those [crosstalk 00:06:34]?
Zak Goldman: Over 10 years.
Jason Pereira: Yeah, over 10 years, there we go.
Zak Goldman: So 10 years, their alternative was ... and even with present value, the numbers, we were far, far less expensive. Do you want to hear the best story?
Jason Pereira: I do.
Zak Goldman: They didn't do it.
Jason Pereira: What was the reason?
Zak Goldman: Their adviser suggested that they sell real estate and use cash.
Jason Pereira: So ... Oh, sorry. You may have heard this, but I just facepalmed myself. So instead of spending $6 million over 10 years to basically produce $45 million to liquidate, to takeover the entire-
Zak Goldman: Entire tax bill.
Jason Pereira: Liability.
Zak Goldman: Yeah.
Jason Pereira: Their adviser basically told them, "Sell off 60 million in assets after tax, you have to generate after tax 60 million corporately to then pay that off personally, to then pay another 15 million in tax personally, and then 45." So this is one of the reasons why I brought Zak in, is, look, I understand a lot of people have [inaudible 00:07:25] about insurance, and I think a lot of it goes back to the way it was sold in the first place, door-to-door was the origin of this thing.
Jason Pereira: The insurance industry takes in tons of people who have a pulse, and you don't necessarily get the best result there, right? But the professionals like Zak get besmirched by them in the general populus' mindset, but I think anyone who's listening right now is smart enough to know that 6 million is a hell of a lot less than 60, again 60 after tax corporate, so that's probably even more pre-tax corporate. I, for the life of me can't understand what in God's name was going through that guy's mind other than a just general distaste for insurance that's unfounded.
Zak Goldman: You want to hear something crazy? I'm going to say maybe it is founded.
Jason Pereira: Why is that?
Zak Goldman: Because I know that's shocking coming from me.
Jason Pereira: No, no, I mean I hear both sides of [crosstalk 00:08:12].
Zak Goldman: Because you just said it, I think the vast ... I think there is ... This industry does not hold itself up to standards that it should, people are not, do not have the expertise, the background, the letters behind their name, it's not that letters mean everything, but it certainly means more than if you don't.
Jason Pereira: It's an indication of education.
Zak Goldman: Right.
Jason Pereira: It's a bunch of people that have learned to sell, and don't actually understand what they're selling.
Zak Goldman: Absolutely.
Jason Pereira: Now if we take that into account, so I understand it, I understand there's a bias.
Zak Goldman: So correction, it's founded based on people's behavior, not the product's value itself.
Jason Pereira: Correct, so it's this behavior of people, and then people think people are commission-oriented. Trust me, there's easier ways to make a living than selling insurance, and people could do that, it is as any business owner knows it's hard to go get clients, and that's the insurance business, and then there's factors beyond your control.
Zak Goldman: Well, the average, I can't remember the statistic, the average insurance adviser in Canada-
Jason Pereira: I know the number.
Zak Goldman: What's the number?
Jason Pereira: It was actually something crazy. It was like 37,000 to 40,000.
Zak Goldman: Yeah, that was-
Jason Pereira: That was gross income when they had to run their business out of office. The vast ... but that's why there's a bias, because the vast majority of these people should ... people in the insurance business shouldn't be in the insurance business.
Zak Goldman: Exactly, but there's also the 80-20 ball. Let's just say there's the ... like in any avenue in life the top performers produce scores and magnitude more than that, but that's like saying, "Okay, so the average guy who starts hockey never gets [inaudible 00:09:32]." Okay, great, that's true, but the guys who get to the [inaudible 00:09:35], and get to the top of the egg shell who get the biggest salaries, jeez they sacrificed beyond belief to get there. They worked hard to get there.
Jason Pereira: True.
Zak Goldman: Any one in this level.
Jason Pereira: True, and that's why we run a business, and that's why we have seven people in the office, which is as you know is not the usual for an insurance firm.
Zak Goldman: You're lucky to have an assistant.
Jason Pereira: You're lucky to have an office.
Zak Goldman: That's true.
Jason Pereira: So I think the bias is justified in some regards. Now-
Zak Goldman: Well, it's a self-inflicted wound by the industry.
Jason Pereira: Exactly. We're trying to change that.
Zak Goldman: Yup.
Jason Pereira: But saying that if you can't look at the numbers, and see what they really mean, so this adviser didn't look at the numbers, didn't care to look at the numbers, and she had made her mind up well before we even entered the room, I get it, but who does that harm?
Zak Goldman: The client. The client is the only one ... The other trusted advisers' bias against it only harm the client. I've had my instances with a counsel who have been reticent to do anything involving insurance until you put the numbers in front of them, and they look at you. You try to do this when the client's not around so that they can save face, but they look at you and they're like, "This can't be right. How does this work? How do they make you money?" Anyone out there, don't stop to think that your accountant or your financial adviser, planner, whatever else it is, even ... maybe your insurance adviser if they're low level, has actually taken the time to understand just how this works. Accountants don't really get any training on this, but they get told all these stuff that they hear, like buy term invest the difference, we'd be better off if you save the money, all that sort of stuff.
Zak Goldman: The reality with insurance is it is a payment that happens on a periodic basis, that leads to a much larger payment later on that is tax-free, and especially when you throw the tax code in when it comes to corporations, like it is a mechanism for taking money out of a corporation tax-free, which show me another mechanism for that.
Jason Pereira: There's not many.
Zak Goldman: Exactly.
Jason Pereira: That's why I say in the current environment, and especially with the current government that was just elected we believe that insurance will be a tool, and is the tool to do planning.
Zak Goldman: Yup.
Jason Pereira: I was sitting with a lawyer, a tax lawyer that I know, and I said, "So what's going on? What are you doing?" He's like, "Well, not much anymore because a lot of the plan that we used to do can't be done," and he looked to me, he says, "I maybe selling insurance in a couple of years," and he was joking, but it was serious. But again, I stepped back because why did he say that? It's because, and this guy actually has a bias against insurance, but uses it because what he needed to see were the numbers. He needed factual proof. He needed more than just an illustration but there's so many opportunities in today's market for business owners and insurance, and if they appreciate to get away from the old, the insurance that's been sold, and actually look at the facts, and look at how this insurance compares to other alternatives I think they'd be pleasantly surprised. Now I'm not saying, these are the things I'm not saying, I'm not saying an insurance is the be-all and end-all.
Zak Goldman: No.
Jason Pereira: It's just one tool of many that should be incorporated into plan.
Zak Goldman: And has to fit the situation, and the evidence should point towards using it. I mean, we see plenty of lawsuits where that's not the case. There was a recent one out in BC with a former NHL star, whose ... Have you seen this one?
Jason Pereira: [Inaudible 00:12:45] also suing for the returns that were generated?
Zak Goldman: It was more [crosstalk 00:12:47] so a failure, a failure of duty across the board, because he doesn't have enough cash to generate, to maintain his lifestyle, but this guy sold him three $10 million life policies, which were all whole life. I know someone who knows this guy he's like, "Yup, he believes whole life is the only solution." At a young age, and he wasn't ... his out before his policies started to amass a lot of cash value, which was the long-term goal. That guy got paid easily, you can't even imagine, but let's just say in the high six figures to basically place all that. So it was a massive conflict there.
Zak Goldman: What I found interesting was one of the things that was in that lawsuit was that "Financial Planner Failed to Deliver Any Form of Financial Plan." It's one of the first cases I'm seeing where what you're holding out is having an impact on what the lawsuits look like, which is what they should quite honestly.
Jason Pereira: I agree. It was a $30 million, it's a plain contract, I was reading it, and it was-
Zak Goldman: So this guy insured all $30 million, all from debt.
Jason Pereira: I think the guy was insuring that he could pay his mortgage rather than insuring that he was insuring the client correctly.
Zak Goldman: I know it's expensive to live in BC, but I mean, [crosstalk 00:13:49].
Jason Pereira: Where I see it, and unfortunately I see it like we are asked to look at not just client cases what we can do for planning, but cases that have been put into place already, and we're asked to give our opinion on it. This is the issue that I have, and it's a whole specialist argument. I always think it's a bit cheesy when people talk about it, but it does come into place. The vast majority of cases where I see things are upside down is where the individual doesn't have a true expertise in it. So where have we seen it? We've seen, and I ... not present company, because a present company is much different.
Zak Goldman: Thank you.
Jason Pereira: But-
Zak Goldman: I'll defend myself in a minute, go ahead.
Jason Pereira: The vast majority of investment advisers that have very ... who wrote the exam, but have done one policy in their life, are giving advice to clients that is not necessarily, on insurance that's not necessarily correct. We are seeing a prop in casualty advisers.
Zak Goldman: Yeah, getting to the business just now.
Jason Pereira: Getting to the business because of the revenue, and what's happened is they're just ... I actually laughed because I see them just send illustrations out to people, and there's no conversation. So what we're seeing is we're seeing adviser to people that are not actual experts, and that one silo. That's where I think we get into a lot of issues, and that's why I keep on going back, the bias is justified, but who loses out of all this is the client. Insurance in a corporate setting, I'll say especially a corporate setting, and maybe we'll talk about this briefly, is really an opportunity.
Zak Goldman: Absolutely from many standpoints.
Jason Pereira: Many, so let's look at insurance, why does an insurance work? Are the insurance companies the smartest people in town, and they can invest your money better? No, they are good with money long- term, they're good. Why does an insurance work? Tax.
Zak Goldman: And mortality credits.
Jason Pereira: Correct.
Zak Goldman: We'll get to that in a second.
Jason Pereira: Tax, and mortality, those are the two things that make insurance work. People if they just took that away from this conversation, and they sat there and they said, "Okay, now are we going to see ... Let's talk about," I always say the thing that I'm asked literally in every meeting, "Do we think there's going to be changes to insurance soon?" Again, sometime, who knows.
Zak Goldman: Yup.
Jason Pereira: I don't think anything in today's world is free from change. I will say this, 2017 we had some, I'll call them major changes to insurance.
Zak Goldman: Putting it lightly.
Jason Pereira: I can't imagine that they're coming back to insurance.
Zak Goldman: No.
Jason Pereira: Quite frankly, as my partner says, "Insurance even in a corporate setting, and especially in a personal setting insurance is benefiting two groups." Now think about this, and I know everyone's going to say, "Come on," widows and orphans. So as crazy as that sounds-
Zak Goldman: Who goes after where there's an orphan?
Jason Pereira: I don't think it's where you're picking your fight.
Zak Goldman: I would actually say that if done right it's positive for all parties involved, including the government.
Jason Pereira: They don't see it. I know what you're going to say.
Zak Goldman: I know they don't say it. I know they don't see it.
Jason Pereira: I know what you're going to say.
Zak Goldman: But the reality, and you know where I'm coming from, is that it provides for families like that with massive tax bills, it provides immediate cash flow to deal with that tax necessity, and lessens the burden to CRA to collect.
Jason Pereira: It is amazing you say it. We talked to families that have huge tax bills, and when you say huge back tax bills it can be 100,000 to a 100 million, it's all relative.
Zak Goldman: It's all context.
Jason Pereira: It's all relative to who you are. I can tell you, we literally talked to families who are billionaires, and you would say, "Oh, they're just going to write the check." No.
Zak Goldman: No.
Jason Pereira: They actually don't have the liquidity.
Zak Goldman: No.
Jason Pereira: To actually write those checks.
Zak Goldman: It's amazing ... Here is the thing, and business owners listening to this podcast are probably the best group to understand that, because especially in cases of divorce where liquidity becomes an immediate issue, you guys know that what you're worth on paper isn't what you're worth in your bank account, right? The reality is, is that if you pass away, if you get divorced you have some sort of need for liquidity. We can all get pretty, any business owner can get pretty constrained at that time.
Jason Pereira: Right, and you would hope that the government and CRA would look and say, "Boy, insurance provides us the capital from that tax bill." You hope, and that's right, I knew you were going with it, but I still sit there, and I go, "I would hope that they would see that, and understand it, I just don't sometimes know."
Zak Goldman: Yeah, and you know what? Think about this on large scale, you think about a publicly traded corporations where founders are still involved, and still have a large amount of shares. Imagine the Zuckerbergs, the Gates, the Buffets of the world where they may own a double-digit amount or percentage of the total company, and when they die massive tax bill. Now different in the US than this year, but same basic principle, for them to actually liquidate enough money, enough shares to basically bring up the cash actually would have a negative effect on the stock price, and hurt every investor. So this is not ... this is something that they should be concerned about is, and you know how CRA is when it comes to tax collections. Anyone who's ever had this issue knows the same thing, it's like the mob, it's like, "Oh, really? You can't make it? Too bad, pay me." They get paid first on everything, and they want it yesterday. You would think that they would hopefully be like, "Oh, nice of you to put insurance in place. That's fantastic. Now you can pay that bill."
Jason Pereira: But we don't ... I'm not sure if they say thank you.
Zak Goldman: No. When did CRA ever say thank you?
Jason Pereira: Well, I get a lot of calls from the CRA, but it's not the ... it's always from a different country, the CRA guys, and they asked me to pay-
Zak Goldman: Half of them are Chinese.
Jason Pereira: I pay them in bitcoins, so I figured it's not [crosstalk 00:19:01]. So we've been talking about the industry in general, and giving some background on the misconceptions, because I think that's very valuable. Let's talk about the use cases, some of the basic use cases for insurance of business owners, and because frankly we can go on for hours about this, because some of the most intricate and complex, and beneficial solutions for insurance involve corporations. So let's start scratching the surface, in your mind give me a couple of the biggest hitters.
Zak Goldman: So I'm actually going to go-
Jason Pereira: You always go sideways.
Zak Goldman: Sideways [inaudible 00:19:31], because it's just the way that I go.
Jason Pereira: It's just the way you are.
Zak Goldman: I think we go to go two places, and I'm going to start, I think insurance for corporation there's two ways we can talk here. We can talk about the protection, and we can talk about creating sort of that legacy. I actually hate that word, so I'm going to change my word legacy-
Jason Pereira: Continuity?
Zak Goldman: Continuity, just capital preservation. Well, a lot of business owners have done, made their wealth, have grown the businesses on their own, they may have a partner that would be a sibling, that would be a friend, that would be somebody they know that they've gone in the business with. The easiest use for an insurance is the partnership.
Jason Pereira: Absolutely, and the most common one the people think of.
Zak Goldman: The most common one. Do you know what's funny? It's the most common one that's-
Jason Pereira: Also not done.
Zak Goldman: Also not done, also not sufficient, and they're-
Jason Pereira: Structured improperly.
Zak Goldman: We saw one once, and it's changing, but I'll give you two things on this. We saw one at a shareholder's agreements, so what we'll do is we'll ask to see the shareholder's agreement of a client or when it's a partnership. Because when we're looking at it let's look at everything to make sure everything's done, so we look at the shareholder's agreement. We'll read in it, and the value of the company will be equal to the value of the life insurance.
Jason Pereira: Yeah, we've had this conversation. I've heard those stories.
Zak Goldman: So I told you this [crosstalk 00:20:47]. I walked into the client, and I knew the guy so I was joking around and said, "Okay, so I want to buy your business. I'm going to write you a check for $500,000." He looked at me, he told me to, "Go fly a kite." Well, he didn't say that, he said something much meaner, and he goes, "What are you talking about?" I said, "Well, if you read your shareholder's agreement you have a half a million dollars of terms coverage, and the reality is that's the value of your business as per how it's written." The business was worth $10 million. So let's talk of it on the-
Jason Pereira: How many screw ups in that case there were?
Zak Goldman: But that's not uncommon.
Jason Pereira: Yeah, but here is the other crazy thing, let's imagine he had died, and let's imagine that was an arm's length transaction, that was a family member that was the partner. CRA would completely whip in their normal playbook to come and say "Excuse me, $500,000 to your brother or to your sibling or to your spouse, to whoever it was, no, no, no, this business is 5 million. Here is the tax bill on the 5 million. I don't care if you have the money or not."
Zak Goldman: That's almost, that was like that's one of the next point as well, because people don't realize that, but you're a 100%. So there's so many issues with that, but the lowest hanging fruit here it's you have a business. You have a partnership. Your blood, sweat, tears, I always say to people, "Just look at this shareholder's agreement, make sure it's actually funded to a sufficient amount."
Jason Pereira: Revisit it frequently.
Zak Goldman: Frequently, and it's not.
Jason Pereira: It never is.
Zak Goldman: We go back every three years to clients, and we asks. I'm always hesitant because I don't want to be the insurance guy that looks like he's selling an insurance, and just look ... but in reality is we want to know, and the other thing I'll say with that, and I'll move on, is people should consider the capital dividend account. That's how the capital can actually come out to the ... this is all dependent on how the insurance is held, but how the capital comes out of the [crosstalk 00:22:25].
Jason Pereira: Yeah, let's talk about that quickly, because this could be another podcast, but it's this it's not account, it's just on your balance sheet or income statement anywhere. It's basically a notional account, and what goes into this notional account is half of the capital being on anything, and the insurance proceeds above something called the adjusted cost base. We're not going to get into that, but it's the majority of the insurance proceeds in most cases if not the entirety. The benefit and beauty of this account is that money can be paid out tax-free to the shareholders. So that's something to ask your accountants about so you understand that, but maximizing that is a great tax playing strategy, and insurance is the biggest way to do that. So Zak, if you want to pick up.
Zak Goldman: So I'll pick up from there. That's actually a great lead into the next segment, so when you ... but you also have to make sure that your shareholder's agreement actually mentions capital dividend account, and who has the right to the half of the account.
Jason Pereira: Correct.
Zak Goldman: That is something what we see often neglected.
Jason Pereira: So let's talk about the capital dividend account.
Zak Goldman: It is-
Jason Pereira: A wonderful notional account that is my favorite account.
Zak Goldman: We really love it, created by insurance.
Jason Pereira: Yup.
Zak Goldman: It's something that, and actually I will say it is the mechanism that certainly helps insurance work so well in a corporate setting. We've talked about how it works so I'm not going to ... you've literally just spoken about it so I'm not going to rehash that, but let's talk about why it's so important. To me, what are we seeing in today's world? We're seeing clients that are living, I'll say as much capital in their holding company as possible, because they're paying 50 cents or a dollar, or above in most provinces now.
Jason Pereira: Right.
Zak Goldman: It's an income tax personally.
Jason Pereira: Even with the new tax rules it's still ... still people are, everyone's leaving it in the corporation, and they're taking out what they need. What we're finding is people don't need all that capital, and-
Zak Goldman: Some of its just there for the next generation, right? They don't need to live off of it.
Jason Pereira: Right, it's there, and they don't need to live off of it, so how do you get it to your family? Most people say, "Hey, I'll die, my family has the estate, they get what they get."
Zak Goldman: Yeah, well, now they're paying a dividend that's pretty much off the table for most of the families.
Jason Pereira: If they don't do any tax planning I think we have the number at 64% tax, because it's not ... it's the dividend, it's the value of the corporation, it's so many layers of tax. Now let's hope to God that you have a good tax adviser, and that tax is ... they've used the tax planning for you, but-
Zak Goldman: Where we're getting that, just to briefly go with that, is when you die the capital gains on the value of your shares is realized, but then what about the investments you have in your corporation?
Jason Pereira: Right.
Zak Goldman: They have capital gains, there's taxes due on those, and then by the time you flow out that, like say that you want to shut down that holding company they're going to have to pay dividend tax on the money coming out, so there's actually three different levels of tax there. When you do all the math, and add that all up you are well North of 60%.
Jason Pereira: It is. It is wild.
Zak Goldman: I've seen 75 in some cases, it's nuts.
Jason Pereira: The reality is people like, "Well, they're never going to wind down the company." Of course they will.
Zak Goldman: Of course they are, you want to access their money. We're not all [crosstalk 00:25:12]-
Jason Pereira: Jimmy and Susie are not going to get along, they're going to have different patterns of how they like to invest, and they're going to want to make sure they get their capital. Trust me, we've seen it, so what do you do? The alternative is to use insurance, and the insurance as we spoke there is that the mortality credits. So if I buy a million dollars of insurance the total premium may cost me $300,000. I'm giving an example, it could be less, it could be more.
Zak Goldman: That over a lifetime of payment period, right?
Jason Pereira: Correct, not that one-time lump sum. There's already a benefit there, what we do and we think is important, we do an internal rate of returns, so what would you have to earn on an outside investment to get that ... to invest the premium that generate the million dollar death benefit. What's interesting is I don't think that's the real number. The real number is what we call the equivalent return.
Zak Goldman: Yes.
Jason Pereira: So the equivalent return is ... it's not what the money does in your corporation, what would you need to get on an investment inside your holding company to actually net the same insurance amount personally, personally, and that's a great number, and that's ... if you ask [crosstalk 00:26:15].
Zak Goldman: That's enormous.
Jason Pereira: It's a big number, and it's a real number, and it's nothing to shake a stick in there because most people say insurance are bad investment, and I look at it I say, "If the iron ore makes sense, then let's do it," because again it goes back to being factual rather than opinion.
Zak Goldman: Yeah. Well, let's just look at a simple example, like it was assumed that the return on that policy is, let's call it just a conservative 5% because you lived a long time. Now, I mean if you die after the first paycheck or that first check, and that number is in the [crosstalk 00:26:41]-
Jason Pereira: 3,000.
Zak Goldman: Yeah, like it's the greatest return in the history of mankind when you're dead, but let's just say it's 5% in a corporation because you basically lived a long time. Now in guaranteed basis that's not bad, that's 5% tax free, but also, let's also not forget that that money can flow out to you personally tax-free. So you're clearing two different levels of tax, both corporate and personal, so you're saving 50 cents and a dollar there nine out of 10, it's very possible you end up with a situation where it's almost equivalent to a 20% rate of return. It really, whether that money is intended to pay the government off, or that money is intended as a mechanism for getting money out of their corporation, by the time you factor in the taxes to what you look like as a low return, and realized that's not a gross, it would take a monumental return to equal that in some cases.
Jason Pereira: So that's why when we speak with clients it's one of the things we look at. What are you trying to achieve? We're trying to achieve to have this capital, and in today's world I think people have made some money doing ... on various things, and they're not going to spend everything that they have. So it is an efficient way to get capital out of the corporation to the estate.
Zak Goldman: Exactly.
Jason Pereira: When you look at as on return basis that we just spoke about, that's one of the main things. Insurance in a corporation is not to be used for an insured retirement plan, boring personally against it, it's but to be used at death when something happens. That is easy as that example is, it certainly is one that is strong, and I always say to people I say, "You don't have the ups and downs. You know, you have an idea of where you're going with your life insurance, and it will get there, and it's a hell of a return." Actually hell of a return than most other things.
Zak Goldman: The convenience factor at death, I mean that's the other thing. The entire guy, the guy who basically said, "Oh, this will sell out fast." Stocks and bonds is one thing, you're hoping that death doesn't happen when the market is in the toilet, but if it's real estate [crosstalk 00:28:34]. How long is it going to take you to clear up commercial building?
Jason Pereira: Well, you didn't make any assumptions, so they actually own it out, own it without partners.
Zak Goldman: That's the other thing too, right? Is our partnership agreement on those properties are in that business, it's such a nightmare if you don't [crosstalk 00:28:47].
Jason Pereira: Liquidity? Liquidity?
Zak Goldman: Yeah.
Jason Pereira: Is I would say the biggest thing.
Zak Goldman: Liquidity, lack of liquidity bankrupts countless people.
Jason Pereira: Right.
Zak Goldman: The alternative is, in which most people say would be, "We're just going to loan," and it's, "Well, your loan is going to be far more expensive."
Jason Pereira: Exactly.
Zak Goldman: There's a ...
Jason Pereira: So now you'd rather pay interest than receive it.
Zak Goldman: You're going to pay interest. The cost of the policy would be less in your interest cost, and now you have to pay principal interests. So we see insurance now, the vast majority of our clients, they've had excess capital in the corporation, an excess capital being ... it's not a huge sum, but just excess capital in the corporation. People that are trying, wanting to pay tax will know they have a tax, will have done planning. Many people now we're finding, and maybe for some weird thing, but everyone's ... a lot of people are doing planning. They're doing freezes, they know what their tax bill's going to be, and they're funding that tax.
Jason Pereira: I mean, part of it is just natural. We're about to face the largest intergenerational wealth transfer of all time, so you're looking at, I think naturally a lot of these people have kids that are sort of adult children that are now working in the business, that are probably past the couple years of being it, to the point where they know they can past that on. If that's your situation as a business owner then frankly the first thing your accountant is going to tell you is, "We need to do a state freeze," because that makes perfect sense, especially if the kids are the ones driving the business forward, they should be rewarded for it. Then the second piece is you're going to have ... How are you going to finance this when you die?
Zak Goldman: I think that's what it comes down to, the vast majority of our ... and most people ... I'm going to say something differently. I think that most people say, "I can afford to pay it, and that's why I don't need insurance." But the reality is of course you can, you've built a business, you're doing well, you could. You could use your own capital, but why would you?
Jason Pereira: Well, it comes down to would you rather spend six or 45 to cover the same bill?
Zak Goldman: Yeah, you're right.
Jason Pereira: I don't understand. To me it's like, "Would you tip the government $39 million?"
Zak Goldman: I think people do.
Jason Pereira: I think that they are. I think that's basically it, I mean as opposed to ... Imagine the government gave you a program as a business owner, where they would give you the same kind of returns as insurance, but it was a prepayment of your taxes, and you were given the choice of, "Hey, you have liability because you froze it, it's going to be $45 million." But instead of that what we'll do is we'll let you pay ... if you pay six over the next 10 years then we'll ignore that when you pass away. Imagine that deal was on the table, like picture this, right?
Zak Goldman: I'm trying to figure out-
Jason Pereira: From CRA.
Zak Goldman: How we can call CRA, [crosstalk 00:31:14].
Jason Pereira: Imagine that was the case, do you know how many business owners would line up to take that deal? When you slap the word insurance, and suddenly it's got this misnomer to it.
Zak Goldman: I have a mentor, he's a great guy, and is a great friend, and he is involved in, not everything, from manufacturing to real estate, and he owns a lot of insurance. I am doing even. He has about $75 million of insurance, he has a tax [inaudible 00:31:37], and he will say to this day it's the greatest thing he owns. He also says, "Just change the name. Just change the name."
Jason Pereira: Yup.
Zak Goldman: "So Zak, can we call it something else?" He said if you called it something else people would buy.
Jason Pereira: A reverse annuity.
Zak Goldman: Because you just described, you just described it. So as a business owner who has capital, trying to figure out what to do, and trying to put my affairs in order, and now I always say this, in order that I'm not making myself pour insurance premiums and over-planning, but just doing things in a natural way. Insurance has a big opportunity, but you have to be willing, and I will say this, you need to look at the numbers. Don't just trust an illustration, ensure that somebody who's doing your planning is sitting there, and really doing the comparison, what are your options? How does this fit in to your overall plan? When someone does that it shouldn't be difficult. The only reason insurance is difficult is because I think people try to ... people being insurance people try to justify their existence, but they're-
Jason Pereira: When all you have a hammer everything looks like a nail. That's basically it.
Zak Goldman: Then you just, just ... it should be easy, the number should be there, and it works.
Jason Pereira: I mean I had a simple non-business owner case, it was just recently. It was a friend, the sister is disabled, mother doesn't have a ton of money, but they're worried about supporting the sister when the mother dies. I said, "Look, this insurance is the solution," I said, "Is your mother healthy?" He said, "Yes." I said, "Look, we're just going to look at the numbers," and sure enough we looked at the numbers, the mother is at a certain age, and she is also diabetic. So in that case we looked at the numbers and at life expectancy the return was only about 4% in her case. They're not too keen on. I said, "Look, it's a toss up, like these are ... We don't know when she's going to pass away, but if she did tomorrow you'd have this money, if you didn't you'd better off investing. It's going to be a decision for you guys."
Jason Pereira: Now if those numbers [inaudible 00:33:26] imagine the situation of life expectancy where the return was seven, and still if she lived beyond that, still in the pretty good single digits then they would have done that in a heartbeat. When people say, "You need X," you know what drives me nuts? That's really you need three times your income or whatever number they pull out of their box, like how does that apply to anything? If you're not doing analysis first and foremost, or with the corporation seeing what, in your situation, which you do all the time, "Here's what's going to happen if you die. This is the tax bill." Then you go into the options, and the last one is insurance, and guess what? In most cases it is the smallest number, right?
Jason Pereira: If you're not getting that kind of analysis to explain why it is you should be putting this kind of money into a plan like this, then you need to talk to someone else, and we're back to your point of specialist, like I am a comprehensive planner. I have an expertise in a little bit of everything. I have deep expertise in planning in tax, and a little bit on the investment side, but we do delegate out some of that as well, but I, despite the fact I have more of those behind my name than in them, and I'm a member of some organizations that you are a member of too, that deals with this on a regular basis, still turn to guys like you to work collaboratively when it gets to a point where it's like, "Okay, this corporation's a little too complex. The structure's a little too complex for my comfort level, and the stakes are so high that we'd rather split income with someone who can basically do the work on this than risk screwing it up."
Zak Goldman: We appreciate it, but as you know we believe you have to work with experts.
Jason Pereira: Absolutely.
Zak Goldman: Not for you, again it's for your client, and that's really what it is, it's for the client, and that's where we see it, and that's why it drives me up the wall when you sit down with somebody, and you ask a client why they did something, and there's no recollection of why they did it. You know why? Because no one's told them why, no one's put it on a piece of paper.
Jason Pereira: Well, now we have to with this thing called The Reasons Why Letter, but even though I've seen some of these reasons why they're pretty slim, like needed insurance.
Zak Goldman: Yeah, like that's-
Jason Pereira: Oh, that's great.
Zak Goldman: That's [inaudible 00:35:19] a second, earn your living, provide value, and I think value is, excuse my French, it's a bullshit word, but provide value to your client. Our clients, business owners, individuals, they work hard everyday, this is not something they should worry about. We're trying to take the pressure off them to ensure whatever they have built, whatever they have built, and ensure that gets either passed along or they receive value for it. Some of the people that are listening have built these businesses that may not survive for the next generation. They just depend on that individual, but at least their family will have something because of this. I think insurance is such a strong tool when properly used.
Jason Pereira: Exactly, and unfortunately when improperly used it's a costly one, right? That's why we have ... This is why everybody owes themselves, and not just go with the guy that was recommended, but at end of the day make sure you're getting ... you feel like you're getting top level caliber advice.
Zak Goldman: The guy they recommended, it's like ... it's always like I used them, but not as much anymore, but when we first got in the business, "It's my brother's cousin."
Jason Pereira: Yeah, it's-
Zak Goldman: It's ...
Jason Pereira: Three degrees of separation at most.
Zak Goldman: It was-
Jason Pereira: Or I went to school with this guy.
Zak Goldman: Yeah, "I went to school, I can find somebody," that's the problem. We would hear all these things. There is nowhere else in life, and it's-
Jason Pereira: Everybody can play pick-up hockey, not everybody can score goals in the head shot.
Zak Goldman: Right.
Jason Pereira: Frankly, if you're going to spend money on this sort of thing, and make sure the longevity of your business is there, your family is there, you want the pro.
Zak Goldman: You know what? It's funny you said you're going to spend money. The premium the premium.
Jason Pereira: Exactly.
Zak Goldman: Let's assume that hopefully we're a little bit smarter, and that we can structure it differently, but let's just assume the premium's a premium, if that's the case, if you're going to pay a premium then work with the best people because you're probably going to get the advice.
Jason Pereira: Exactly.
Zak Goldman: That's-
Jason Pereira: Well, that's the thing, is that if the need is the same across the board then why spend the same amount of money on someone who's less good in the profession.
Zak Goldman: You know why people do it? I had a call this-
Jason Pereira: Convenience. Familiarity.
Zak Goldman: Convenience because, "Well, Zak, someone came to me 10 years ago. I did a policy, I never heard from that individual again." Yup, so that's it.
Jason Pereira: Yeah.
Zak Goldman: The clients are within their right, I get it.
Jason Pereira: There is a right to be apathetic.
Zak Goldman: But we can't do it, because of the value. Now I'm going to leave you with one thing.
Jason Pereira: I want to hit two more topics before we go.
Zak Goldman: I know, because I know what you're going to ask me.
Jason Pereira: What am I going to ask?
Zak Goldman: You're going to ask me-
Jason Pereira: I'm going to ask the core of insurance.
Zak Goldman: We're going to go back to the core of insurance, and we're going to talk about insurance tracking shares, aren't we?
Jason Pereira: I was going to bring in Jonah for that. Do you want to do that?
Zak Goldman: You bring in Jonah, Jonah is much smarter than ... for people listening, Jonah's my partner, he's my tax partner, he literally can do a whole portion on insurance tracking.
Jason Pereira: So you tell me, you want to do it now or you want to-
Zak Goldman: No, because you know what? He's better because I will give like the 30,000 foot level, and that's again why would I do that?
Jason Pereira: You're not even want to talk about it [crosstalk 00:37:59], because the guy who works with you knows it better.
Zak Goldman: He knows it better.
Jason Pereira: There you go.
Zak Goldman: I won't, and you know what? It's funny, Jonah in meetings will defer to insurance, insurance, the analysis of insurance to me.
Jason Pereira: That's one of your strengths, like the pitcher doesn't catch, the catcher doesn't pitch, right?
Zak Goldman: It is, but one of the two things that you ... you see I even came prepared, I thought you were going to ask me that question, but okay.
Jason Pereira: That's all right. Well, we went in a different way, but so the other two areas I want to touch on, because I'm thinking about like fundamentals of business owner insurance, and what it does, one of the things we haven't really talked about is the fact that we talked about what happens on death, but let's also discuss briefly about the fact that this is a tax shelter while you're alive. The money that you're putting into these things, and there's two different broad types of policies that we can fund with extra cash, one is a whole life policy where essentially the insurance company runs the money on your behalf and pays you dividends. The other one is the universal life policy, which is like an investment account, where you have to pick a certain number of funds or ATFs, or GICs, but this all grows tax shelters. So let's talk about that in regard to the corporate surplus.
Zak Goldman: It's like it's the curse of knowledge, I think we just realize it grows, and we never even ... forget to mention half the time.
Jason Pereira: Yeah, absolutely.
Zak Goldman: So as you mentioned there is two components of insurance, there is the life insurance component, and then there is that cash [inaudible 00:39:13] component, and especially now, but what we see is because people have this excess capital in their corporation if you keep it in a taxable investment you get taxed on it, once you dispose it as investment be it on an annual basis, whatever it is.
Jason Pereira: People don't realize this, but it's a passive rate, so that's a small business, that's over 50% [crosstalk 00:39:34].
Zak Goldman: 50%, it is huge. When we do the numbers it is shocking.
Jason Pereira: Oh, and if you are over 50,000 now you basically are going to have part of your small business [inaudible 00:39:44] clawed back, which believe it or not, depending on what province you're in, we're talking about an extra dollar over 50,000 can result in tax of somewhere between 75 to a $1.20. That is right, over ... you can actually end up paying more than you made, believe it or not.
Zak Goldman: Did you see that article that Jonah wrote?
Jason Pereira: I don't think I did.
Zak Goldman: I'll send it to you.
Jason Pereira: Send it to me.
Zak Goldman: It was great. It was on that point. So what are people doing? Because this is-
Jason Pereira: You need a tax shelter if you're going to pay tax in $1.20. I still fall over every time I hear that.
Zak Goldman: The tax shelter, and I'll give you the analogy, it's just like a TFSA or an RRSP, but it doesn't have any limits, in theory there's limits [inaudible 00:40:24].
Jason Pereira: But it's more or less than 6,000 a year, actually far more than 6,000.
Zak Goldman: Far more, but insurance in ... So imagine this, I'm going to give you some, and this is what I love actually about it, so insurance ... So you have corporate capital, and you put that corporate capital into an insurance policy, it pays the insurance premium, the excess premium that goes in grows tax-free, and it continues to grow over a long period of time. So you can imagine if you're able to defer tax on an investment for 20, 30, 40 years the effect of compounding is massive. We did it, we showed it a 1% difference once, the effect of compounding and it was, in this situation I can't remember all the numbers, but it was millions of dollars that it had an effect on it. That corporate capital grows tax-free, and at death gets paid out tax-free.
Jason Pereira: In a lot of ways that tax savings throughout the life of that policy often more is an excess of what the actual premium was for the cost of insurance. So you have the cost of insurance, which the insurance company takes every month, and then you have the actual extra cash you have in there.
Zak Goldman: You know what I love just on that? If we talk about, let's say-
Jason Pereira: This is where CRA doesn't like it, but continue.
Zak Goldman: I think we understand that, and again they made changes, so let's not say this is not like CRA's under a rock, doesn't know, they made changes in 2017, so I don't likely perceive for some time unless we redo the entire tax code that this is going to change. So let's [crosstalk 00:41:52], but what is interesting is, and I like about it, and I do with my own policy is now year 10, I say, "Okay, there's a lot of capital in my policy," so now I put in capital in my policy, premium on an annual basis, it's grown tax-free, and at the tenth year I have tax-free capital paying the premium. Then at death it comes out tax-free.
Jason Pereira: Tax-free.
Zak Goldman: Then plus the ... I knew you couple that with the insurance, there's not many things-
Jason Pereira: This is what we're saying, like these numbers get crazy.
Zak Goldman: These numbers get crazy. We do analysis all the time, and we make sure that when we're looking at rates we're using the proper rates, but that 50.17 is crazy, so that's why insurance works. I said at the beginning it's one of the reasons is tax, that's why it works. So if you don't need all the capital, and if you've done a proper financial planning, and you realized this, insurance should be one of the tools you use to get capital for the next generation, being your spouse, your children, your grandchildren. I'll say one of the biggest areas that we're doing right now, you know what it is.
Jason Pereira: Charities, charities. Oh, my God, yeah, charities usually, I've got another episode on that coming up. Sorry, it's not you, it's going to be someone else. I got to spread around amongst the friends, you know?
Zak Goldman: Hey, listen, that's where we see it.
Jason Pereira: Excellent.
Zak Goldman: So it's a hell of a tool, and that's what people are using, and that's why we ... that tax are called tax, the tax-free growth, and you know what happens, I don't want to say one thing, because it makes people somethings could happen, and you never know you might have to take the capital out. Now let's be quite frank [inaudible 00:43:25].
Jason Pereira: Yeah, but there's still flexibility for us to access that capital multiple ways. It's not like it's locked in there with like-
Zak Goldman: If you need the money there are ways to get, and that's what also interesting. I think you have to be careful in certain ways that people suggest to get it. I don't think you could ... Our own personal view to our firm is you can't take the corporate asset, and get a personal loan against it.
Jason Pereira: There is an entire civil ... sorry, Supreme Court case on that entire issue.
Zak Goldman: The famous-
Jason Pereira: [Inaudible 00:43:50].
Zak Goldman: We think it's garbled. We got whole other issues, but we're not going to ... but what we do think is that if you need ... I know that if I needed access to that capital, if I needed to get a loan against it, I need to wind down the policy, it's available. Everyone says, "Oh, insurance is so inflexible," complete opposite.
Jason Pereira: Oh, no. Oh, my goodness, like there's certain degrees of inflexibility, but as a whole it's incredibly flexible. So Zak, thank you for taking the time. Where can people find you? Besides the gym, go on.
Zak Goldman: I know. You have so many jokes there.
Jason Pereira: I know. For those of you who haven't got it yet, I'll probably leave an open door for Zak because he'll walk right through it. Where can people find you professionally if they wish to reach out to you?
Zak Goldman: There's two places, our website, I've decided to change the name because everyone said it was ... it used to be sterlingparkgrp.com, very difficult. My partners would yell at me, and when I first started the company 15 years ago that was easy to get, but now spfgrp.com is the website, it has our contact. I always think just LinkedIn Zak Goldman, Sterling Park, it's there. I get those messages, I love it because it's an easy way people ... I actually am in shock, I'm a dinosaur at 43 years old, and I can't believe that people reach out to me that way. I get messages all the time, and that's how I talk to a lot of people who's out there.
Jason Pereira: LinkedIn's my number two source of communication after e-mail these days, but it works. Anyway, Zak, thanks a lot, and this is great, and I'm sure hopefully some people reach out to you, be with a true professional when it comes to this stuff.
Zak Goldman: Thank you.
Jason Pereira: Thank you.
Jason Pereira: So that was my interview with Zak Goldman, hope you enjoyed that. I also hope that we didn't get too sidetracked, and you came to understand what the core benefits of insurance are within a corporation, and how it can benefit you, and the next generation, and with that, as always I'm your host Jason Pereira, and if you enjoyed this podcast please leave a review on Apple Podcast, Stitcher, Google Play, or wherever it is you get your podcast, 'til next time, take care.
Speaker 1: This podcast was brought to you by Woodgate Financial, an award-winning financial planning firm catering to high net worth individuals, business owners, and their families. To learn more go to woodgate.com. You can subscribe to this podcast on Apple Podcast, Stitcher, Google Play, Spotify, and Sound Cloud. For more episodes go to jasonpereira.ca. You can even ask Siri, Alexa, or Google Home to subscribe for you.