Financial services in Markham

CWCC works with Markham families, technology professionals and business owners on life insurance, living benefits, succession planning and capital strategy: entirely online. The firm is registered with Quebec’s AMF under number 602293 and is licensed to place insurance in Ontario, where Jose Salloum is a licensed life insurance agent with FSRA.

A point about titles

In Ontario the titles “Financial Planner” and “Financial Advisor” are protected under the Financial Professionals Title Protection Act. We do not use them. Jose Salloum is a licensed life insurance agent here: that is what his FSRA licence permits.

What makes Markham different

Markham is one of Canada’s most diverse cities and one of its principal technology hubs. That combination produces a financial profile few other Canadian cities share.

It is a major technology centre. Markham hosts the Canadian or regional headquarters of a great many technology companies. A significant share of the working population is paid partly in equity: stock options, restricted share units, share purchase plans. That is not a salary, and it does not plan like one.

Established family wealth, often transnational. Markham holds one of the largest Chinese-Canadian populations in the country, alongside a substantial South Asian community. Unlike a recently arrived population, many families here have been established for a generation or two, with wealth built in Canada, and sometimes assets, inheritances or beneficiaries located elsewhere.

High income and education levels. That does not simplify planning: it complicates it. A high-income household meets contribution ceilings sooner, runs into passive income taxation inside a corporation, faces Old Age Security recovery, and encounters a larger tax bill at death.

Foreign assets and beneficiaries abroad

This is Markham’s most distinctive question, and the one where a mistake costs the most.

Reporting foreign property

A Canadian resident holding specified foreign property whose total cost exceeds a set threshold must file an annual return with the Canada Revenue Agency: form T1135. This covers foreign bank accounts, rental property outside Canada and certain foreign investments. Penalties for failing to file are real.

We do not prepare that return and we do not give tax advice: that belongs to your accountant. We raise it because it is frequently overlooked by families who kept an account or a property in their country of origin, and because it changes how an estate must be prepared.

Naming a beneficiary who lives abroad

It is possible, and common in Markham. It does deserve to be done knowingly: paying a death benefit to a non-resident can raise questions of currency exchange, banking compliance in the receiving country, timing of payment, and sometimes taxation in that country, which does not depend on Canadian law.

A life insurance death benefit is generally received tax-free in Canada by the named beneficiary. What the beneficiary’s country of residence does with it is a separate question, and it belongs to a tax specialist familiar with both regimes.

A will made in another country

A will drafted elsewhere may be valid in Ontario, partly valid, or inoperative, and real property located abroad generally falls under the succession law of the country where it sits, whatever intention you expressed here. Many families assume a single will covers their entire worldwide estate. Often it does not, and that is a question of private international law requiring a lawyer.

Equity compensation

For a technology employee paid partly in securities, three difficulties arise that a salary does not create.

Concentration. A significant share of the household’s wealth depends on the health of a single employer, which also pays the salary. If the company falls back, the household loses net worth and job security simultaneously. It is a risk most people would never deliberately take in a portfolio, but accept without thinking in their pay package.

Tax treatment. A stock option and a restricted share unit are not taxed the same way, nor at the same moment, nor like a salary. The timing of exercise or vesting matters. That belongs to your accountant: we do not advise on when to exercise.

Tax at death. Deemed disposition makes taxable the accumulated gain on securities nobody has sold. For a concentrated portfolio that has appreciated substantially, the bill can be large, and the estate can be forced to sell at the wrong moment. That is precisely the function insurance liquidity performs.

We do not give securities advice and do not recommend selling or holding anything: CWCC is not registered with CIRO. What we can do is structure the liquidity that prevents a forced sale.

Our seven service areas, seen from Markham

Life insurance

Term, permanent, participating whole life. For substantial and concentrated wealth, the dominant function is estate liquidity rather than simple income replacement.

Living benefits

Critical illness, disability, long-term care. A high income often depends on one person, and group plans cap out: an executive’s disability need frequently exceeds what a plan covers.

Group insurance

For the employer, a recruiting tool in a fiercely competitive talent market. For the member, coverage that ends with the job.

Wealth creation

RRSP, TFSA, FHSA, RESP. A high-income household fills its ceilings quickly: the question becomes what to do with surplus capital.

Investment options

Segregated funds, mutual funds, ETFs, GICs. Education, and segregated fund contracts placed under our insurance licence. For securities held through a dealer: a CIRO-registered representative, which CWCC is not.

Succession planning

Will, estate trustee, designations, Estate Administration Tax, foreign assets and non-resident beneficiaries.

Financial sovereignty

The layer that connects the other six. See below.

The business owner and the incorporated professional

Markham holds many technology firms, professional practices and incorporated consultants.

The pattern is constant: the corporation accumulates cash because taking it out costs tax immediately. Passive income then reduces access to the small business deduction beyond a threshold. A threshold a profitable Markham corporation reaches faster than most. At death, the deemed disposition of the shares can trigger a substantial capital gain.

The Capital Dividend Account enters here: where a corporation owns and is beneficiary of a policy, the death benefit generally credits the CDA by the excess of the proceeds over the adjusted cost basis, and that balance can be paid to shareholders as a capital dividend, generally free of tax subject to the rules in force.

It is a mechanism in the Income Tax Act, it depends entirely on how the policy is owned, and it requires your accountant, your lawyer and us.

The Infinite Financial Sovereignty® strategy in Markham

The strategy we call Infinite Financial Sovereignty® rests on the approach widely known as The Infinite Banking Concept®, originated by R. Nelson Nash. In any financing arrangement, someone supplies the capital and someone owns the structure it moves through.

The strategy uses a participating whole life insurance policy issued by a Canadian mutual insurer as the place capital accumulates on a tax-deferred basis, accessed through a policy loan rather than by applying to an outside lender.

Three clarifications, non-negotiable: a policy loan is a genuine loan issued by the insurer, it accrues interest, and it reduces the death benefit while outstanding. Dividends are never guaranteed. And this is not a bank: a policy is an insurance contract governed by provincial insurance legislation, it is not a deposit account, and protection comes from Assuris rather than CDIC.

Why Markham? For two reasons. A high-income household that has filled its contribution ceilings is looking for somewhere to place surplus long-term capital without adding market risk to wealth already concentrated in one employer’s securities. And a transnational estate needs predictable liquidity at death, where foreign assets can be slow to realise.

The book Infinite Financial Sovereignty®, Simplified sets out the full mechanics, including an entire chapter on where the strategy does not fit.

How this approach compares

An honest comparison does not declare a winner.

This table claims no superiority. A participating policy is an insurance contract; comparing it to the market as though it were a fund would be a category error. For the highest expected return, other vehicles suit better.

Who this is for in Markham

• Technology employees paid in equity. Concentration, particular tax treatment, tax at death on an unrealised gain.
• Families with assets abroad. Foreign property reporting, a will in another country, non-resident beneficiaries.
• High-income households. Ceilings filled, surplus capital, OAS recovery.
• Business owners and incorporated professionals. Passive income, the Capital Dividend Account, succession.
• Families established across two generations. Intergenerational transfer and coordination between parents and adult children.

And who it is not for: without an emergency fund, carrying high-interest debt, or with uncertain cash flow, those things come first.

What a first meeting covers

Thirty minutes, online, no products and no obligation.

How a meeting works

All of our meetings are held online, by video. The firm’s office is in Quebec, and no Markham client needs to travel there. Several members of one family can join from different places, including from abroad.

Check us out independently

No form in this section, nothing to book. Before trusting anyone with money the right instinct is to verify, and nothing here should discourage it.

Frequently asked questions. Markham