Citing the outcomes of FP Canada’s 2022 Monetary Stress Index survey, the planning tax credit score coverage paper from StrategyCorp mentioned solely 4% of Canadians work with a monetary planner. The stress index survey additionally discovered 16% of Canadians say they work with a monetary advisor, 8% work with an funding advisor, 5% with an insurance coverage agent, and a pair of% work with a distinct sort of monetary skilled.
“It’s in all probability extra correct to say solely 4% of Canadians work with a monetary planner who prices solely a price for duties or by the point labored. I don’t cost that manner with my work, and nor do the overwhelming majority of monetary advisors,” McGruer says. “This initiative would qualify solely a particular sort of recommendation for the credit score, and successfully discriminate in opposition to Canadians who select different forms of recommendation.”
To advertise monetary resilience throughout the nation, the paper additionally means that the federal tax credit score be geared in direction of Canadians who’re utilizing monetary planning recommendation for the primary time. The proposed credit score would solely be relevant to plans protecting recommendation throughout a number of areas, to mirror “the excellent method of monetary planners and the multifaceted character of monetary resilience.”
“Who decides what qualifies as a first-time consumer? Is that after they want it, or after they simply need to use it? Is it after they really feel prefer it, or after they get marketed?” McGruer says. “If an advisor needed to assist their purchasers entry the credit score, they may sport the system by giving extra recommendation than they really want or need, so their purchasers might get invoiced and change into certified. … Not everyone goes to be trustworthy about this.
“A core a part of FP Canada’s mission is to advertise the worth of monetary recommendation, and I assist that,” McGruer provides. “However whenever you step into utilizing the power of presidency to have some folks’s monetary recommendation paid for by others, I believe that goes properly past any sort of mandate {that a} voluntary affiliation like FP Canada has.”