CPP – The Walker Report

Is It Time To End The “Senior” Citizen?

Margaret Wente is both enjoying the perks of her “seniority” and worries that we may be undermining the future.

Over the weekend one of my clients posted an article from Margaret Wente about the many privileges bestowed upon seniors in Canada. Listing an almost unbelievable number of perks for “elderly” Canadians, which ranged from discounts at drug stores and movie theaters to government pensions and new federal tweaks to retirement programs, in every way seniors in Canada have it pretty good.

So good in fact that Margaret Wente has begun to despair. Not for herself, but for the future. The younger generation is definitely having a tougher time than their parents. And while none of this predicts that the Millennial’s will be poor, it does go to the heart of the uneven balance about finances that exists between generations.

Who has the most money and assets in Canada?

One of the big changes in the federal budget was a reduction in the mandatory RRIF withdrawals that will effect everyone over 71. Putting the final nail in the coffin of the often heard and mostly pointless “RRSP/RRIF tax trap” the Conservative government has slowed the income coming to retirees from their long term retirement savings. This is being lamented as little more than “tax avoidance” for one generation by Carleton economics professor Francis Woolley, who has her own piece in the Globe & Mail about RRIF and Taxes. It’s a good read but if I may, her essential point is: “people don’t like to pay taxes.”

What’s happening is that we live in unprecedented times. Unprecedented in the life span of those living, the material wealth we have available to us, and the inverted demographics that comprise many countries around the globe. Everywhere people are richer, living longer and getting older. Many of our concerns about the economy, the cost of living, or the security of programs like CPP, or Social Security in the United States, are born directly from our success at creating a higher standard of living. Higher wages, better medicine and a declining birth rate make us materially richer, until they don’t.

What you are looking at in the above chart is the changing nature of both Canada’s and the worlds age. From 1950 on Canada briefly saw a boom in the birth rate that has since reversed itself. The number of Canadians over 60 (the y-axis) is now better than 20% of the total Canadian population, while the number of children (on the x-axis) has been steady at about 5%.

“So, we’ll give them a little money to tide them over until they die, which will only be in a couple of years anyway, no long term financial entitlements for us!”

All the goodies that benefit the senior class of Canadians are getting more costly both because Canadians are living longer, but also because the tax-base needed to support many of those services is shrinking. But are seniors “too rich” as Margaret Wente thinks? Probably not. While Canadian poverty rates for the elderly are some of the lowest in the world, people who retire at 65 need to make all their savings last them until they are ninety, or older. You try and figure out what you are going to spend for the next 20-30 years. When Otto Von Bismark introduced the worlds first old age pension, it was for people who were 70 years old and their life expectancy was for maybe two more years. Today people retire and they live another lifetime. As we’ve previously said, when you’ve retired you’ve earned your last dollar. That can be a pretty scary thought.

https://youtu.be/IsNiKGMSHUQ

The solution? There isn’t one. As I said these are unprecedented times. We still treat retirement like those who hit 65 are “old”. When my grandfather was 12 he had finished school, worked in

This book was written in 1997. 1997! It's taken 20 years for it to be relevant. — This book was written in 1997. 1997! It’s taken 20 years for it to be relevant.

a factory and eventually fought in the Second World War. By the time he was 65, suffering from lung deterioration after a life time of smoking, his face bore every year like the rings of a felled tree. My father on the other hand just had his 70th birthday and looks barely 60. That isn’t good genetics, that’s the product of good living. This trend is global, affecting everyone from China to Canada, and it will be with us for a long time. For many years people have been sounding the alarm about the demographic storm that is approaching, but such storms are slow moving. This is the beginning of a much larger set of conversations that will begin to address how we perceive retirement, savings, economic growth and government programs like the CPP. How we ultimately address and resolve the burgeoning conflicts about age and wealth will put many of us, and our retirement plans, to the test.

April 27, 2015April 27, 2015 by The Walker Report of Walker Wealth Management and Aligned Capital Partners Inc

What Your RRSP Should Have In Common With The CPP

To many Canadians the CPP is something that you simply receive when you turn 65, (or 70, or 60, depending on when you want or need it) with little consideration for how the program works or is run. That’s too bad because the CPP is successful, enlightening and puts its American counterpart, Social Security, to shame.

You’ve probably heard American politicians decrying the state of Social Security, claiming that it is broken and will one day run out of money. That’s a frightening prospect for those who will depend on it in the future. Social Security is a trust that buys US debt, and its use of US Treasuries (low risk debt issued by the US government) is crippling that program and even puts it at odds with attempts to improve government financial health (it’s more complicated than this, but it’s a useful guide). In comparison the CPP isn’t bound by the same restrictions, and operates as a sovereign wealth fund.

A sovereign wealth fund is simply a fancy way to describe a program that can buy assets, which is exactly what the CPP does. The Canada Pension Plan may be larger and more elaborate than your RRSP, but it can look very similar. The CPP has exposure to Canadian, American, European and Emerging Market equity. It invests in fixed income both domestically and abroad, and while it may also participate in private equity deals (like when the CPP bought Neiman Marcus) in essence the investments in the CPP are aiming to do exactly what your RRSP does.

The big lesson here is really about risk though. The CPP is one of the 10 largest pension plans in the world. It’s wildly successful and is run in such a way as to be sustainable for the next 75 years. The same cannot be said for Social Security. But by taking the “safest” option Social Security is failing in its job and will run out of money by 2033. But by buying real assets and investing sensibly the CPP is far more likely to survive and continue to thrive through all of our lifetimes.

What’s also notable is what the CPP isn’t trying to do. It isn’t concentrated in Canada. It doesn’t need to get a substantial rate of return, and it doesn’t need every sector to outperform. It needs consistent returns to realize its goals, and that’s how it’s positioned. By being diversified and not trying to time the market, the CPP finds success for all Canadian investors.

I’ve said in conversation that if there was an opportunity to invest directly in the CPP I would take it. However until then the best thing investors can do is take the CPPs lessons to heart!

November 13, 2014 by The Walker Report of Walker Wealth Management and Aligned Capital Partners Inc

I’m from the Government and I’m Here to Help! (Your Retirement)

I’ve just finished a Fideltiy Investments Tax Clinic, and it was filled with some great ideas about how to help people manage their investments with tax implications in mind. But what really jumped out at me is how retirees are being penalized under the current tax system.

The 2013 budget closed a number of investment loopholes that they felt were being abused by large corporations. One of these was a structure called a Capital Yield Class (aka character conversion transactions), which when reduced down to its basics allowed investors to benefit from conservative yield generating investments, like bonds and dividend funds, while converting their income into more tax friendly capital gains.

Closing that loophole may help preserve Canada’s tax base, but it raises questions for retirees. As people start retiring there will likely be a growing demand for conservative investments that are mindful of taxes. Between pensions, RRIF payments and the CPP its not improbable that retirees with sufficient income may find themselves paying a HIGHER rate of income tax than people with a comparable salary!

This is where the government can be incredibly useful. There is clearly a need for smart taxable strategies that benefit retirees beyond RRIFs and the CPP, but shares the same clarity as those products. Any solution that the government supplies would be unlikely to make everyone happy, but it would provide certainty to retirees and those approaching retirement that they are choosing the soundest investment solutions.

The Conservative Party has shown a lot of responsibility when it comes to taxes, as well as a strong populist streak not always in keeping with “business minded” political parties. This has meant ending Income Trusts and Capital Yield funds while introducing the TFSA and a potentially divisive income splitting proposal. But as the Canadian population continues to age smart political parties will likely continue to focus on the needs of that growing demographic.

November 7, 2013February 24, 2014 by The Walker Report of Walker Wealth Management and Aligned Capital Partners Inc