Protect your investment gains

One of the many mistakes made by investors if that they often neglect to protect their gains from the burden of taxes. Don’t get me wrong, I am not talking here about illegal means to avoid taxes, there are many ways to save taxes and at the same time remaining compliant with tax laws. The examples I will be showcasing are more specific to the US and Canadian financial systems, but I’m pretty sure it shouldn’t be very hard for somebody industrious enough to find them for their local jurisdiction.


The first tools are traditional retirement savings plans. In their case, the contributions are tax-deductible. So for somebody who is in the 30% marginal tax bracket contributes 5000$ in that plan, he will see his tax return or his tax obligation respectively increase or decrease by 1500$. An investor could use them since they allow for a variety of investment vehicles, ranging from CDs (GICs in Canada) to Stocks, which is of interest. The taxpayer gets the tax benefit during the fiscal year that the money is invested. In the US, there are the IRA (Individual retirement account) and the 401(k). In Canada, it is the RRSP (Registered retirement savings plan) that offers the same advantages. To me it seems it would be very useful for people in higher tax brackets to maximize those types of account.


People in lower tax brackets and some money to spare will find the second type of investment account very interesting. It has been available for a while in the US and has been offered to Canadians only since January 2009. Contributions to a those accounts are not deductible for income tax purposes but their biggest advantage is that investment income, including capital gains, earned in a TFSA are not taxed, even when withdrawn! I might be wrong, but it looks to me like the last tax haven available to the middle class. In the US, they are called Roth IRAs and in Canada, they are named TFSA (Tax free savings accounts). Put the issuance of TFSAs the, the Canadian government provided a graph showcasing the long-term tax advantages:


People not familiar with those accounts should meet with their investment advisor to get more clarifications about them. This article gives only a glimpse of their characteristics and an investor serious about his long term success should think about implementing them in their investment strategy. There should be more effort put in maximizing them to the limits than since they will provide tax relief in the present and untaxed profits in the future.

A useful rule of thumb

Recently someone was telling me about his savings that were in a guaranteed investment account, he was wondering how long it would take to double his money. I took him by surprise by giving him an answer after a couple seconds of thinking. Some of you might have guessed it, I do not have an integrated calculator in my brain, I just learned a trick from some specialists of the world of finance and, unfortunately, I do no know who the author is.

Usually, if you want to know how long it will take for your money to double, you need to use a pretty complicated formula, in a particular example, if one would ask how long it would take to double 1000$ et would use n = ln(2000/1000)/ln(1+i). Here n is the number of years necessary to double your money, the time frame we are looking for. R is the interest rate the money is invested at. The expression ln(2000/1000) is the application of the natural logarithm. Using that formula on a financial calculator and using an hypothetical rate of 4%, this formula would give us 17.7 years. At 6%, it would give 11.9 years.

Now let me reassure you, i did not make that calculation to give an answer to that friend. That formula should be used if you want to get a very accurate answer. In the everyday life, we can use a shortcut. I did what very few people know about; it’s called the rule of 72. That simple rule has the following form: n = 72/r. That easier expression says that by dividing 72 in to r, that will give you the approximate number of years necessary to double the money. Coming back to the earlier example, 72 divided by 4% will give us 18 years. It is close enough to the earlier estimate of 17.7. With 6%, you get 12 years. It is still quite precise for everyday calculations.

So next time someone you know asks you how long it will take to double their capital, you will be able to surprise them by answering them in a couple of seconds, or almost, just by asking them their interest rate.