Tim Hortons... the decline of a Legacy?

Tim Hortons IPO price was set at $27, it soared to 39.99 before falling to $31.75. Tim Hortons earnings per share and profit are anticipated to be large. Their growth outlook however is quite limited. How many more franchises can Canada realistically support? The American expansion has been met with mixed results. Americans don't mind spending a lot of extra change for specialty coffee. Tim Hortons will find it difficult and perhaps too risky to further expand into the USA to compete against Star Bucks, Dunkn Donoughts and Krispy Cream. The franchise established in October 1964 has resulted in 42 years of growth in the number of locations and profits. The realistic outlook for increased earnings per share for Tim Hortons is dim after their first full year of fiscal results. On the life cycle of corporations, Tim Hortons is approaching maturity. Its only recourse at this age of development its own maintain market share, before old age sets in and their market share begins to arode with increased competition. The time to by Tim Horton shares is now and then sell them quickly after their first annual report is released which will signal good news to the investor which undoubtely will result in a market share spike in the short term.

IAS or CICA?

The way that Canadian Accounting standards are headed are to comply 100% with international standards. Is this a shrewed reporting based compliance decision? Or is it once again the Canadian comprimising its own soverignty over their own Generally Accepted Accounting Standards?
It should be up to Canadian accounting bodies to establish our own compliance based system. Just like SOX in the USA would not work in Canada (were over 85% of the corporate base has revenues less than a million dollars), Canada has a much smaller economic base from which reporting standards have been established to serve. Just as all roads do not lead to Rome, so not all nations have the same reporting needs. Each respective states whether small, medium or large must find their own methods of fulfilling the requirements of the conceptual framework for financial statement reporting.

Canada posts $9 billion surplus over 10 months

OTTAWA -- The federal government is reporting a surplus of $9 billion for the first 10 months of the fiscal year.
The government added $1.7 billion to its surplus in January alone, the Finance Department said Thursday.
That's down $700 million from the same month a year earlier.
For April to January, the surplus was down $3.9 billion from the same period in 2004-05. Revenues were actually up by $6.5 billion but spending jumped by a whopping $11.1 billion, mainly due to higher transfer payments to provinces for health care and equalization.
Debt charges dropped by $700 million as the government continued to pay down the national debt.

Conservatives Backpedal on Capital Gains Promise

“I think the absence of the capital gains promise the Finance Minister’s speech is an implicit admission that this proposal is dead," said Liberal Finance critic John McCallum. “This comes as no surprise since the Conservatives’ promise is both administratively and fiscally impossible.”During the election campaign, the Conservatives promised to make all capital gains exempt from taxation, as long as the funds were reinvested within a six month period. The proposal was widely criticized by economists because of difficulties in implementation as well its prohibitive cost.“The capital gains proposal is administratively impossible because tax authorities are unable to follow a particular dollar from capital gain on Stock A to reinvestment in Stock B to reinvestment in a cottage,” McCallum continued. “All the experts I have consulted confirm this view. It simply cannot be done.”The Conservatives’ promise is also fiscally impossible to put in place, without a return to deficit. Simon Fraser’s Public Policy Professor Jon Kesselman estimates the capital gains tax deferral would cost around $1.5 billion per year rather than the $150 million per year that was budgeted in the Conservative election platform. TD Chief Economist Don Drummond agrees, calling the cost of the program “grossly understated”. The capital gains proposal has not found support from those advocating a more competitive tax system either. Leading economist Jack Mintz of the C. D. Howe Institute did not include the capital gains tax in his list of twelve areas needing reform in his 2005 Tax Competitiveness Report. Not only is the capital gains proposal bad policy, but it also shows Canadians where the Conservatives priorities lie. This tax loophole would provide a $6-billion benefit for the wealthiest one percent of Canadians. In fact, it is so egregiously tilted in favour of the very rich that even the Bush administration found a similar US proposal too much to stomach. It seems that not a day goes by that the Conservative Party doesn’t break a campaign promise. Perhaps this time though, the Conservatives have realized what was immediately obvious to both financial experts and average Canadians– that their proposal is administratively, fiscally and morally impossible to implement.

I always suspected that our subs had a high scrap value

DARTMOUTH, N.S. - Decommissioned Canadian navy submarines are going cheap.
For just $4, a Quebec museum has purchased one of the Oberon-class subs sitting dockside in Dartmouth.
The Musee de la Mer de Pointe-au-Pere near Rimouski, Que., paid the $4 - plus tax - in October.
HMCS Onondaga will be towed out of port this summer to its new home.
It's slated to open to the public June 1, 2007.
Annemarie Bourassa, assistant director of the museum, says they think the sub will be a big draw.

Problem Solver

Three men are travelling in a car.The car breaks down and they look for a mechanic to repair the car. They are charged 30 dollars and each pay 10 dollars to make up the charge. So after the car is repaired they are set to go. The mechanic realizes that he had over charged them by 5 dollars and he gives his son to take back the change to the three guys. The son thinks to himself " How can 3 people share 5 dollars?" and so he takes 2 dollars for himself and gives back each of the three 1 dollar.

Effectively this means that each of the three guys paid 9 dollars because they have 1 dollar change from the 10 dollars they each paid. 9 dollars times three guys equals 27 dollars plus the 2 dollars the boy took comes to 29 dollars. What happened to the 1 dollar???

Tisk, Tisk, Tisk... those American Accountants just can't get it right!

H&R Block faces US$25OM fraud lawsuit over marketing

http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/financialpost/story.html?id=e61c7616-5995-4007-9680-37dcca5a2661

Other Comprehensive Income (summary of report)

OCI has emerged at the forefront of accounting topics due to its relevance and material impact that it could have on the financial statements of Canadian Corporations. The United States and IASB have both strongly examined the impact of a shift to more fair value reporting where OCI will have its largest impact. With Canada now adopting the IASB standards, OCI now needs to be examined by Canadians to evaluate the benefits and consequences of adopting this standard.

Our paper subjects in order of discussion will include the impact of the fair value reporting of foreign exchange gains and losses on the conceptual framework and existing financial disclosure, comparison with the IASB standards and how government agencies will view the new standard specifically the Canadian Revenue Agency. The papers final topic will be the discussion of implementing a fourth financial statement, the comprehensive income statement and the effect on current financial statements including the user's reliability on such a statement.

We will apply the conceptual framework to the paper by examining the effects of OCI on the financial statements and the reliance and relevance that is applied by users in the evaluation of the information disclosed.

Our resources so far include numerous internet resources and text book references.

New Mandate

As my elderly counter part Master Ribero has previously noted, I have failed to post any witty remarks of have hazzard attempts at irony in the last 4 days. In my defence, I've been busy. It takes great skill and ambition to study and to post my comments as well. Not everyone can multi task. Hopefully I can learn to do so in the future.

I had some ideas for my blog were Master Ribs could mockingly take over the studio and hold the producer hostage, but I lack the creativity beyond the oringinal thought.

New Opposition Leader

Liberals are grasping for anyone to take the most unwanted Job in Canada, as they turn to a Marxist to lead the party. Karl would be proud that his short work of fiction has finally become reality in Canada

R-i-b-e-i-r-o Arrested

Yesterday in Superior Court of Ohio, radical Ribs was arrested for slander and is subjected to several law suits regarding his inhuman treatment of rare talented hamsters. Superior Court Judge handed down the writ for the ring leaders arrest. Mr. Jan's warrant may not be far behind after the six partner whose sudden departure from the staff to go to Colarado revealed several hardships that he faced while being on the staff. He reportly stated "that under Rib's care he was the last line of defence and was blamed for everything." His name is not mentioned as he has entered into the FBIs witness protection program. Ribs was reported as saying he was "innocent" after being lead away in hand cuffs yelling over the police officiers shoulders that he did not work for Enron or WorldCom and their must be some mistake. :)

A Canuck in the top 10, Its almost exciting As spelling Ribieroiiiiiii's name wrong

Chris Sorensen, National Post; with files from ReutersPublished: Friday, March 10, 2006
Canadian media magnate Ken Thomson has reclaimed a top-10 spot on Forbes magazine's list of the world's richest people, rubbing shoulders with wealthy superstars like Microsoft founder Bill Gates, investment guru Warren Buffet and Sweden's Ingvar Kamprad, who founded the Ikea furniture chain.
Mr. Thomson, 82, whose family was estimated to be worth about US$19.6-billion, was ranked 15th on last year's billionaires list and is joined in the top-10 this year by French luxury goods maker Bernard Arnault and Li Ka-Shing, the head of the Hong Kong Conglomerate Hutchison Whampoa. Mr. Thomson held a top-10 spot in the 1990s, but slid out of the upper end of the rankings over the past few years.
The complete list of 793 billionaires, up from last year's list of 691 names thanks to soaring stock, oil and commodities prices, is to be published by the magazine today. "A billion just isn't what it used to be," said Forbes associate editor Luisa Kroll, presenting the 20th annual list at a New York news conference.
The billionaires' combined wealth grew 18% to US$2.6-trillion, according to Forbes.
Unlike some of his upper-crust billionaire peers, Mr. Thomson has preferred to fly under the radar despite accumulating one of the most remarkable fortunes in Canadian history through Thomson Corp., a media and information conglomerate with a market value of $27.7-billion, and a family holding company that once held a majority interest in the Hudson's Bay Co., formerly Canada's oldest retailer.
"The lowest profile is the very best to have," Mr. Thomson once told Peter C. Newman in a 1991 article for Maclean's magazine.
Indeed, while Microsoft's Mr. Gates (No. 1 on the Forbes list for the past 12 consecutive years) and his wife are using their vast wealth to launch a much-talked about crusade to defeat malaria in Africa, and while Berkshire Hathaway's Mr. Buffet's (No. 2) investment tips annually draw thousands to Omaha, Neb., Mr. Thomson has preferred to stay far from the spotlight's glare and closer to things that bring him true pleasure -- including his massive art collection.
"My collection is very personal," he told the Financial Post Moneywise Magazine in 1987. "All my objets d'art have memories that go with them and they all have something that appealed to me in the first place, or I wouldn't have bought them."
Included among the 3,000-odd works is Massacre of the Innocents, a long-lost masterpiece by Rubens that Mr. Thomson bought for US$77-million, according to Forbes.
In 2002, Mr. Thomson donated an estimated $300-million worth of paintings to the Art Gallery of Ontario and then pledged $50-million to the art gallery the following year to help pay for an expansion project.
The Thomson family's media empire was founded in the early 1930s when Mr. Thomson's father, Roy, bought two radio stations in Northern Ontario. He then purchased the Timmins Daily Press newspaper in 1934.
By the time he died, Roy Thomson, a barber's son, carried the British title Lord Thomson of Fleet and presided over a prestigious collection of newspapers and other media properties that included such jewels as the Times of London.

A New Era Part 2

Another new era has come to Canada. For perhaps the first time in a long time a true Canadian goaltender is not standing between the pipes of the Montreal Canadians goal net. Its a shame that Montreal fans will no longer to achieve the satisfaction of watching an actual Canadian dual in goal for the victory.
One brief statistic of note for Ribero :) Montreal has never won one play off round let alone the Stanley Cup with a non-Canadian goaltender. It looks like Montreal traded away their hopes and ambitions with the acquistion of a Swiss born star. Ask Toronto how well their Swiss players have helped them in their quest to win the Stanley Cup (well just to finish 9th this year).
P.S. I didn't even know they could play hockey in Switzerland :)

Stephen Harper tough on others ethics, but not his own?

The Prime Minister conducted his campaign based on his ethical superiority, but based on his recent resolve to take out any oppoistion to his own ethical misconducts, the situation is clear, no matter who is the leader of this nation the ethics resolve of the state is anything but good. As Crazy Karl (Marx) would say "its time for the serviant class to rise up against the dominate class and claim what rightfully belongs to them." For too Long Canada has been run both economically and politically from the throne room of Canada's richest families. Its time that Canadians stand up for change not just amoung political parties, but to the Government itself inorder to provide for a Canada that stands up for its own citizens. :)

http://www.canada.com/news/story.html?id=165278dd-f4d1-4d1e-a878-801948b5d99b

HBC a New Era

With the completed acquisiton of HBC, Maple Leaf Investments has taken Canada's oldest publically traded company private, in a wise decision to better compete within the Canadian department store market. The American owners will no doubt spin off Home Outfitters, the Bay, and the northern outlets leaving Zellers to forge out a new landscape in Canadian retail. Zellers was the only component on HBC consolidated statements that consistently out performed the HBC's other lagging assets. With spinning these companies off it will permit Maple Leaf Investments to acquire much needed to capital to reduce the debt load of HBC as well as the interest ratios that might allow them to renegotiate their current long term loans to a more favourable interest rate. Zellers with the additional capital should be better able to compete against Walmart in Canada. It currently hopes to keep the edge in number of retail outlets even with the continued decisions to spin off unprofitable Zellers reatil sales chains. It appears that Americanization of Canada, hasn't stoped with the purchase of Master Ribero's hockey team, but has purchased one of Canada's former most loved retail outlets. Its a shame that Canadian culture is once again comprimised over a loonie or maybe in this case Washington himself has succeeded in his plans to annex Canada although it took him longer than even he could image :)

What the Liberals are saying

Ethics Commissioner Agrees to Investigate Harper Following Complaint March 06, 2006
Following a written complaint from Malpeque MP Wayne Easter, the federal ethics commissioner Dr. Bernard Shapiro has decided to launch an investigation into the process by which Prime Minister Harper managed to have David Emerson cross the floor following the recent federal election to accept a cabinet office.
“In information received from the Ethics Commissioner last Friday” said Easter, “I was informed that the Ethics Commissioner has decided to launch a preliminary inquiry to determine whether Mr. Harper has complied with his obligations under the Conflict of Interest Code for Members of the House of Commons. I was also informed that an inquiry into the activities of Mr. Emerson will also be undertaken by the Ethics Commissioner and a single report will be released.”
In a letter dated February 10, 2006, Mr. Easter indicated his concern that the Prime Minister may have offered an inducement to Mr. Emerson to cross the floor and join the Conservative government, even though he had just been elected as a Liberal Member of Parliament.
The House of Commons conflict of interest code prohibits MPs from inducing another MP to take an action that would further their private interests. Cabinet ministers are paid $213,500 or $69,200 more than a backbench MP. They also receive other financial benefits beyond the prestige and influence of the office, including a car and driver. Therefore, there were significant financial perks at stake for Mr. Emerson to cross the floor.
A Conservative spokesperson responded to the news by publicly stating they will not cooperate with the Ethics Commissioner’s investigation, claiming the investigation is just a “partisan attack” and that the Ethics Commissioner is a “Liberal appointee.”
Dr. Shapiro’s appointment as Ethics Commissioner was confirmed by a vote in the House of Commons pursuant to the provisions of the Ethics Bill (C-4). When Dr. Shapiro was questioned by a House committee following his nomination, the Conservative members expressed no concern with his impartiality and qualifications, instead publicly stating that he had a “very impressive” background.
During the last session of Parliament, the Conservatives asked Dr. Shapiro for, and received, a number of ethics investigations. Now that they are in power, the Conservative government apparently dismisses such investigations as “partisan attacks”
Could it be that the Conservatives only respect the office of the Ethics Commissioner as long as their party is not subject to investigations?
For a party that ran under the banner of “accountable government,” this lack of respect for the Ethics Commissioner is the ultimate act of hypocrisy.

Conservatives Taking their Time

Tory machine slow to hire
Senior staffers grumble about top jobs left unfilled Indecision, slow hiring hampers bureaucrats' work
Mar. 6, 2006. 01:00 AM
SEAN GORDON
OTTAWA BUREAU
OTTAWA—They are usually highly coveted, influential backroom jobs but as the Tories mark their first month since gaining office, many of the seats of power remain unoccupied.
Of the 27 cabinet ministers, three have yet to hire chiefs-of-staff — several key ministries, like defence and finance, named theirs in the last week — and more than half don't have communications directors or parliamentary affairs advisers.
Top government officials maintain the key positions have long been filled, which is the case in Prime Minister Stephen Harper's office. But in the ministries, some senior staff grumble that the new government is anything but a well-oiled machine.
A high-ranking ministerial official, who, like others interviewed, didn't wish to be named, said there is still a lot of indecision, and the slow pace of hiring means ministers are sometimes finding it hard to accomplish even basic tasks, like setting up meetings with colleagues to align departmental priorities.
One cabinet source said ministers have been instructed that in the near term, all that matters are Harper's much-ballyhooed five priorities — child-care payments, tough law-and-order measures, a GST cut, a guarantee on health-care wait times and new accountability legislation — and that departments outside those areas have been told to hang on to their new ideas and keep their noses clean.
"There are a lot of people who don't have much to do at the moment, but that's fair enough. We need to focus on our top priorities," said the source.
The Prime Minister's Office says it's generally happy with the transition, but many staffers admit the learning curve, especially after 12 years in opposition, is steep.
Some officials also say that Harper's wish to trim the size of cabinet has led to tighter budgets than the Liberals had, and some ministers have found it hard to woo qualified staff. A chief-of-staff for a minister can earn as much as $160,000 per year. Communications directors and senior policy advisers top out at about $120,000.
"I don't know if it's a power play thing or trying to keep the resources for the front-line ministries, but there are some differences (in budgets)," said an official who advises a minister in one of the priority areas.
Insiders also cite new ethics rules that forbid former staffers from lobbying government for five years, the fact that aides will no longer have preferential access to civil service jobs, and the rickety status of the minority government. Others say the list of staff compiled by the transition team was short on qualified talent, and many ministers have set the bar for new staff impossibly high.
"One minister said he wants young, bilingual, politically experienced, masters-level people only. Well I'm sorry, but there aren't that many to choose from in the current climate, and most of those folks have been snapped up," said one official involved in staffing.
This week, the cabinet will meet to consider budget priorities and to map out the weeks before the Speech from the Throne, slated for April 3.
But as the government gradually finds its feet — after playing defence on files from Afghanistan to the defection of International Trade Minister David Emerson to the Mexican Mayan Riviera murders — criticism is emerging from some quarters that Harper is trying too hard to control the agenda.
"People at the centre seem to want their hands in everything," observed a senior aide to a minister. "There's a lot of negativity there."
But PMO officials say it's only natural to want to be kept in the loop, and that the five major short-term goals demand careful and constant attention.
Keen to preserve the kind of discipline that carried the Tories to power, Harper has decreed that all major decisions and announcements must be vetted by the PMO, sources say, and that all ministerial communications strategies must also be co-ordinated with his office.
And in some policy making departments, officials say they've been told that as the Tories polish off short-term priorities, they'll be asked to co-ordinate policy ideas with the PMO's research and policy section.

Stephen Harper: The best PM for Taxpayers

Interest Rates: a bad thing

Interest-rate suspense hurts Canadian dollarLast Updated Mon, 06 Mar 2006 16:15:07 EST
CBC News
The hard-charging Canada dollar took a rest on Monday as traders waited to see whether the Bank of Canada will extend its string of interest-rate hikes to five in a row – and, if so, what hints it will drop about future increases.
The dollar, which hit a 14-year-high of 88.49 cents US last Thursday, was down more than a third of a cent at 87.73 from Friday's close of 88.11. Rising interest rates tend to strengthen the currency by encouraging foreigners to buy Canadian dollars to invest at the higher rates.
On the rate front, the central bank has raised its target for Canadian short-term interest rates by a quarter of a percentage point each of the last four times out, pushing the benchmark from to 3.5 per cent in January to 2.5 per cent in late summer.
With another announcement scheduled for Tuesday, one strategist was on record as saying a fifth quarter-point jump was "essentially a slam dunk."
"Markets are fully pricing in the move, and analysts are unanimous on the bank's decision as well." Marc Lévesque of TD Securities said in a report issued on Friday.
"The real issue is not the decision itself. It's what the bank will say in its press release, and whether there are more moves to come."
The central bank, which seeks to use interest rates to steer the economy between inflation and recession, makes eight regularly scheduled rate announcements a year, but also reserves the right to change rates without warning if it feels the need.
Its official target is the overnight rate, a rate charged on one-day loans between ordinary banks. The announcement (up, down or no change) is an expression of the bank's wishes, enforced by its power to influence markets by buying and selling government securities.
FROM FEB. 10, 2006: Canada's trade surplus balloons on natural gas exports
TD's Lévesque said Canada's current economic results, including its strength in business investment, exports and job creation, point to a sixth quarter-point increase in April. "The only real wild card at this stage is the behaviour of the Canadian dollar," he said.
A strong dollar tends to hurt exports and jobs by making Canadian goods more expensive to buyers using foreign currencies. Lévesque said the central bank "will certainly take notice" if the dollar continues to rise on what he called "pure momentum."

U.S. bumps against debt ceiling, sparking mini-crisis on Capitol HillLast Updated Mon, 06 Mar 2006 15:27:49 EST
CBC News
The United States is bumping against its debt ceiling, precipitating fears that the nation could soon default on its obligations.
U.S. Treasury officials warned Congress last week that Washington's debt levels were coming close to the nation's legal limit of $8.2 trillion. Any more debt, the officials said, and Washington might have to default, forcing the nation into a technical bankruptcy as early as March 20.

Experts have warned President Bush to trim his spending
While no expert really expects the United States to file for bankruptcy any time soon, the issue has ignited a minor crisis on Capitol Hill.
Treasury Secretary John Snow notified the U.S. Congress on Monday that the administration has now taken "all prudent and legal actions" to prevent the nation's national debt limit from being reached.
And he offered a solution, familiar to many consumers: raise the debt ceiling.
In a letter to Congress, Snow urged lawmakers to raise the nation's credit limit to avoid what could become the first default in the nation's history.
In the meantime, Snow is buying time. He plans to put off a financial crisis by dipping into the Civil Service Retirement and Disability Fund for a few billion dollars that he can use to avoid a default.
President George W. Bush has said he wants to cut the deficit in half by 2009, the year he leaves office.
Doug Porter, senior vice-president of BMO Nesbitt Burns in Toronto, said he isn't overly concerned by the latest debt crisis in Washington.
"The U.S. has been through this kind of semi-drama several times in the past 10 years," he told CBC.ca. "The issue pops up every few years. Politicians use it as a tool."
He said Washington has a variety of means to avoid hitting its debt ceiling. One of the most common is to dip into federal pension funds for a temporary cash fix. That is the method that Snow said he intends to use.
FROM JAN. 18, 2006: Buffett warns of turmoil with U.S. trade deficit
"It is really a paper game," Porter said, adding that Washington can stave off the crisis by transferring money from one account to another.
Washington will no doubt survive its latest crisis, Porter said, but he warned that Washington will have to keep an eye on its debt levels.
"The debt has been higher in the past," he said, while adding it's "certainly a problem."

Helping Father, When I was young and the West was free

Here is Joe directing traffic as I the ever diligent child aids my father with the building of the bridge.

Father when the world was in black and white

Here's a picture of my Father, Charles, when he was in his late teens. He appears to have a mischievious smile on his face like he was up to something :)
I thank the Lord each day for such a good Father, and if Mother reads this the same goes for her as well.

MLB Canadian Perdictions

The vast improvements that the Jays have made should be enough to place them in second place, but the lack of power in left and right field not to mention error collector Hinskie playing outfield will contribute to another season that the Jays will fall short in their expectations. Don't get me wrong it would be nice as an adult to witness a Canadian team win again, but definitely not this year. I feel at the begining of the new baseball season what a Leaf fan feels at the end of an NHL season "theres always next year!!"

Division:
Boston 98-64 -
Toronto 95-67 3
New York 90-72 8
Tampa Bay 70-92 28
Baltimore 68-94 30

My New Car

No I won't be like Ezra and exaggerate at the begining of the blog. This is not my car. I was at the auto show a couple months ago and got in line for a free picture. I think it's colour, but I'd hate for the wind to mess up my hair :)

When I went to the auto show I actually got stoped at the metal detector. Evidently the tic tacs I had in my coat pocket had melted to form an alloy.

Charity Tips

Charitable Donations:

16% on the first $200 given to charities and 29% federal tax credit on the remainder
To claim charitable donations, you must have official receipts that show the recipient organization’s charitable registration number.
Can claim charitable receipts made in either spouses name.
Maximum of charitable donations you can claim in one year is 75% of your net income, to an extent that charitable donations exceed the 75 % threshold they can be carried forward five years.
TAX TIP: higher earning spouse should claim all the charitable donations, add donations among taxpayer so they exceed $200 threshold to maximize charitable tax credit potential.
Annual limit for the year of death is 100% of net income for the year.
Any donations not claimed on your final tax return can be carried back and claimed on the year before death; If a charity is named as beneficiary of a life insurance policy or RRSP in your will, your estate will be able to claim the amount as a charitable donation on your final tax return or in the preceding year.
Types of charitable gifts:
Gifts o Crown: same 75% limit applies to crown gifts since 1997 (100% prior).
Gifts in Kind: refers to a gift of property; normally valued at FMV for purpose of determining tax credit (TC normally valued at 45% of property); deemed disposition at FMV is subjected to any CG;
i. Individuals or corporations who donate securities that are traded at a prescribed rate need only include ¼ TCG instead of the usual 50%
ii. For a corporation its Capital Dividend Account will be increased by the non-taxed portion (3/4) (RECALL: CDA can be repaid to the Shareholders tax-free.
iii. Election: to use a lower limit than FMV (same amount used to determine credit) Can elect any amount between adjusted cost base and FMV
Cash versus Shares:
Shares are preferable because of the ¼ CG rate for donations.
Both result in the same tax credit, but a donation of stocks has a preferable tax advantage.
Gifts of Cultural Property: deemed as being culturally significant to Canada, the donation will be equal to FMV with no TCG arising; Ecological Sensitive land donations are subject to the ¼ CG income inclusion.
Gifts of insurance policies: value of your donation will be the policy’s cash surrender value, plus any accumulated dividends and interest that are also assigned, minus any policy loan outstanding.
To the extent that the value exceeds the tax cost you must recognize the excess as income as if you cashed it in yourself.
Once a donation of a policy if you continue to make the payments they will be considered as additional donations
If the charity is a beneficiary of the policy then the policy is considered a donation made by you before your death.
Purchasing an annuity from a Charity:
for annuities acquired after December 20, 2002 the tax rules are quite different, you can earn a charitable donation tax credit if the amount you give to the charity is greater than the market price you would otherwise have paid for an annuity offering similar annual income from a life insurance company.
Taxable portion received by you from the charity; if total payments received exceed market price, you will have to bring the difference into income over the projected life expectancy.
Charitable Remainder Trusts:
consider donating a residual interest in property that is still needed to create income for the taxpayer (real estate)
Charitable remainder Trust, with conditions that income be paid to you, but the residual interest in property being transferred to the charity
Value of a gift of residual property is a discounted present value
The taxpayer will have been deemed to have disposed of the property when the residual ownership was transferred
References:
IB 110R3 Gifts and Official Donation Receipts
IB IT-226R Gifts to a charity of a residential interest in real property or an equitable interest in a trust
IB IT-244R3 Gifts by individual of life insurance policies as charitable donations
IB IT-288R2 Gift of capital properties to a charity and others
IB IT-297R2 Gifts in kind to charity and others.

Audit Report: Supply Chain Inefficiencies

Heres part of my most recent completed research paper on the supply chain, more to follow later.
Introduction:
JIT delivery as an effective, efficient, and economical segment of the supply chain is doomed to become technologically infeasible, and economically unpractical. One often thinks of JIT delivery as an efficient method at which goods are delivered and manufactured at exceptional quality. Anthony Dear in his literary work Working Towards Just-In-Time defines[1] JIT delivery as “materials and goods arriving just-in-time to be used for manufacturing or being dispatched to a customer”. However, various newspapers and periodicals entitle it JIT transport choosing to clearly delineate it to the supply chain. The focus of the future of JIT delivery is not on the efficient use of inventory or the increased quality of the product but on the supply chain aspect itself. Without the effective and efficient supply chain JIT is left with only inventory, minimization and total quality management (although others argue that these in themselves are there own disciplines). JIT delivery is adversely impacted by external environmental circumstances such as inefficiencies in the transportation of goods, oil prices, and border delays resulting from terrorism, unions, and capacity problems with the supply chain. One must discuss the historical circumstances that has lead JIT delivery to its present situation, in order to evaluate the external problems and determine solutions that are needed. If these external circumstances are not resolved, they will result in JIT transports ultimate collapse.
Origin of the Problem
JIT first began in Japan after the Second World War. After the bombings of the Japanese industry there were very little buildings to house manufacturing plants as one roomed facilities was all that could be found to conduct manufacturing operations and for storage of the inventory needed to carry on the day-to-day operations. The system of JIT was utilized out of a need for economic survival. The 1950’s Japanese manufactures did not realize that they had just made a more advanced system of logistics were goods could be manufactured more efficiently, effectively and economically. JIT delivery appears to be one of the good aspects that emerged as a direct consequence of the Second World War. The system of the supply chain has been greatly advanced because of JIT delivery in several key aspects including the following: increase inventory usage (inventory turnover), increased efficiency as receiving supplies only when needed has resulted in companies being more efficient with their human and machine capital leading to increased quality through total quality management. The creation of JIT delivery minimized the impacts of high holding and warehouse related input costs. Corporations in North America have saved hundreds of millions of dollars over the last forty-five years and are in danger of loosing their long-term investment in the supply chain due to several macro environmental impacts. These external problems can be summarized to include increased fuel prices and inefficiencies among different segments of the supply value chain. The previous mentioned advantages that derived directly from lack of inventory space has resulted in minimized raw material and increased quality. Wen-Yu Yang[2] in his article The Design of the Factory With a Future defines JIT’s internal factory purpose as “attempt to change the manufacturing process to eliminate non-value-added activities”. The elimination of waste of raw materials has increased internal efficiency with the company’s outputs per unit of raw material. However, it is a shame that external inefficiencies in the supply chain mentioned in subsequent paragraphs exist counter intuitive to Just-in-times original purpose of efficiency.
Without JIT –delivery coming to the United States after the Second World War the inventory usage and quality control advances in technology might not have occurred as the Henry Ford mentality of increased efficiency and quality was no longer the center of attention during the Cold War struggles. JIT-delivery also leads to a military aspect, which gave the American military a distinctive advantage over the Soviet Union during the Cold War. The history and advantages to JIT-delivery helped move the theory into reality, however with any reality there also comes trials and various circumstances that bring the theory to the brink of economic and social collapse. The following disadvantages and corresponding solutions will acknowledge that JIT delivery is presently experiencing the adverse consequences of the macro environment that must either be solved or bring the theory crashing down to be substitute by some sci-fi method of delivery.
[1]
[2] Yang, Wen-Yu. Common Wealth April issue 1996. McGraw-Hill Series in Industrial Engineering and Managment

Joe is Going Court'n

When Joseph first told me he was going court'n, my first reaction was sympathy that he got into legal trouble in the United States. If it was a taxation issue I might have been able to give him advise, but this was something different. When I finally realized what he meant by his proper terminology I wondered what happed to my dear twin brother who is currently violating the pack we made as 8 year olds to chase the cooties away :) I'll post pictures later if copy right laws permit :)

Coat of Arms

The one on the right is the current Canadian coat of arms. Some intelligent person wants to change it to include Beavers holding unto the maple leaf with a crown and lion floating in mid air above the beavers. You may ask how does this relate to accounting, easy how are they going to "account" for the change :)

Accounting Joke

There were a bunch of accountants at a seminar, and there was the assoicated accounting terminology and comments made related to the accounting profession. After awhile a silence filled the room, and you could have heard a calculator drop, then one of the junior accountants in the back of the room got up and filled the conversational GAAP.