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Cardinal Point Wealth Management’s Terry Ritchie Featured on MDRT

January 27, 2022 By Cardinal Point Wealth

Cardinal Point’s Vice President Terry Ritchie was recently featured on the MDRT website in an article about common cross-border financial planning mistakes advisors tend to make. The piece emphasized the importance of targeted financial planning for clients moving to another country.

A few highlights:

  • Citizens who live or work abroad are plentiful, representing a large potential market for financial planners. However, the process is intricate and must consider different immigration income and estate tax rules, currency fluctuations, and a variety of other regulatory hurdles. If not adequately addressed, these factors could expose advisors to potential liability and clients to unexpected financial losses.
  • Advisors should consult with immigration or estate planning counsel or attorneys when working with clients planning cross border moves.
  • Depending on the types of accounts a client has, there may be restrictions on management and administration of which advisors need to be aware. There may also be regulatory hurdles imposed by federal, state, or provincial authorities. Failure to avoid errors in this area can have dire consequences.
  • Wholesale foreign exchange providers are often a better choice than traditional retail banks for currency exchange. The savings for clients can be significant, as most of these firms will beat the retail rate.

Get all the details when you read the entire article here.

Moving and Financial Planning

Filed Under: Articles Tagged With: Canada-U.S. cross-border financial planning, Terry Ritchie

Terry Ritchie featured in the Globe and Mail: Foreign Exchange

October 24, 2018 By Cardinal Point Wealth

Terry Ritchie gives his insights and tips when dealing with foreign exchange options.

From the Globe and Mail article:

“I’m not a big fan of the banks,” said Terry Ritchie, a financial adviser who works both sides of the Canada-U.S. border. “They’re great for convenience. But if you can take the time and wait a day or two, there are better bets.”

Read the article here

Filed Under: Articles, Canadian Snowbirds Tagged With: canada us cross border tax, Foreign Exchange, Terry Ritchie

Terry Ritchie featured in The Insurance & Investment Journal article, Managing Cross-Border Clients

October 18, 2016 By Cardinal Point Wealth

From the Insurance & Investment Journal article:

Managing cross-border clients is a challenging area for advisors that requires thorough knowledge on how to handle life insurance, investments, taxes and pensions while respecting two countries’ rules and regulations.

The Insurance and Investment Journal spoke to U.S-Canada cross-border expert Terry Ritchie, a director at Cardinal Point Wealth Management, who’s specialized in the field for more than 25 years to find some answers. He says if you don’t have knowledge or experience it is very easy to mess things up for your client.

Read the article here

Filed Under: Articles, Cross-Border Estate Planning Articles, Cross-Border Wealth Management Tagged With: Americans living in Canada, canada us cross border tax, Canadians living in U.S., cross border investment management, Terry Ritchie

Estate Disputes: Keeping the Peace

September 30, 2016 By Cardinal Point Wealth

Estate planning issues can create family discord, especially in cases in which there is a sizable inheritance and heirs have disparate circumstances and competing interests.

“You seem to know people,” says Terry Ritchie, director of cross border wealth services with Cardinal Point Capital Management Inc. in Calgary, “but when someone dies and there’s money [involved], their real colours come through.”

Managing delicate family dynamics can be challenging, Ritchie adds, but there is much you can do as a financial advisor to prevent and minimize potential conflict. Ritchie offers the following advice for helping clients keep family peace before and during a wealth transfer:

Encourage open dialogue

Ritchie recommends hosting a family meeting that includes the client and all the beneficiaries of the estate as part of the estate planning process. Heirs who are unable to attend in person can connect by speaker phone or online. The conversation should cover how the wealth transfer will unfold and issues unique to that case that might arise.

As the financial advisor, you are in a position to address family members’ questions about the ins and outs of the wealth transfer. For example, you can field questions that may arise regarding taxes, which can complicate the process, especially if there are cross-border tax issues.

But the level of disclosure you get into — such as the client’s net worth and the distribution of assets — is your client’s call. Ritchie lets his clients decide whether it makes sense for him, as the advisor, to communicate with the family. Once he has the approval to engage the family, he is careful to treat the children equally and be up-front about how he’s helping their parents.

Improve your client knowledge

Expand the scope of your discovery process to include getting to know your clients’ family dynamics. Ritchie usually holds an in-depth conversation with clients about how their children are faring, asking if there are any issues he should be aware of that could complicate the wealth transfer.

For example, Ritchie becomes attuned to the marital status and financial circumstances of his clients’ children, which helps him get a better sense of their motivations. By becoming familiar with your clients’ children, you create an opportunity to continue a relationship with that generation.

“I have a pretty good understanding of the cast of characters I might be dealing with in the future,” Ritchie says. “Many advisors don’t go that deep.”

Take the heat

If your client feels caught in the middle of an intractable sibling rivalry over the inheritance, Ritchie says, help ease the stress by acting as an intermediary.

He has faced situations in which clients’ children want to dictate the terms of how and when the assets will be distributed. In one case, one sibling felt that the wealth was being divided unfairly, because others were receiving a larger portion to include their children.

In such cases, Ritchie will take on the role of “bad cop,” enforcing the client’s expressed wishes and explaining the reasons behind the decision.

When the children prove relentless in pushing for their preferences, he often tells his clients: “Don’t be the bad guy, let me be the bad guy.”

Filed Under: Articles, Cross-Border Estate Planning Articles Tagged With: canada us cross border tax, canada us estate planning, Cross-Border Estate Planning, Terry Ritchie

FATCA Tax Evasion Law: What You Need to Know

July 20, 2015 By Cardinal Point Wealth

The Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA) has now been in force for about a year now. Its goal: to prevent millions of U.S. taxpayers, and the global financial institutions that serve them, from evading U.S. tax on income and assets held outside the United States.

As our Terry Ritchie explains in an article at ADVISOR.CA, the law affects seven million Americans who live or work abroad, including 1 million in Canada. “U.S. persons” must file annual tax returns on worldwide income and disclose interests in accounts or other foreign entities outside of the United States. And under FATCA, non-U.S. financial institutions have to report certain information to IRS about U.S. persons’ bank, investment and other accounts.

The New York Times has documented examples of unfavorable treatment of U.S. persons by FFIs in Europe and elsewhere. But Canadian foreign financial institutions (FFIs) don’t appear to have turned away U.S. persons or closed their accounts due to concerns over FATCA.

FATCA still faces challenges, including a Canadian lawsuit charging that the cooperation agreement between that country and the United States violates the Canadian Charter of Rights. And in the United States, Congressional Republicans may look to repeal the law if a Republican succeeds Barack Obama as president.

But FATCA may also be applied on a global scale—in what’s being dubbed GATCA. The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development is promoting it as a way to curb tax evasion through automatic exchange of information between FFIs around the globe.

 

 

Filed Under: Articles, FATCA Tagged With: FACTA, Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act, Terry Ritchie

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“Cardinal Point” is the brand under which dedicated professionals within Cardinal Point Capital Management, ULC provide financial, tax and investment advisory, risk management, financial planning and tax services to selected clients. Cardinal Point Capital Management, ULC is a US registered investment advisor and a registered portfolio manager in Canada (ON, QC, MB, SK, NS, NB, AB, BC). Advisory services are only offered to clients or prospective clients where Cardinal Point and its representatives are properly registered or exempt from registration. This website is solely for informational purposes. Past performance is no guarantee of future returns. Investing involves risk and possible loss of principal capital.