Mary Spencer was putting the final touches to her personal financial plan before
graduating from the Richard Ivey School of Business HBA program in the spring of 2012.
In general, Mary was happy with her plan. Her goals, investment policy statement and
financial budget all made perfect sense to her. Even so, she kept going back to one number
—43% tax rate! During our analysis, we are seeking a combination of three or four
investment vehicles that would work best together.
First, we take a look at the macro environment of Canada and the risks that Mary would
meet in such an economic environment. In this part, we also make an introduction of
personal taxation and some investment vehicles in Canada.
Then, Mary’s personal situation is taken in to consideration to analyze whether her
financial plan is suitable for her to achieve all her goals. We divide her financial plan to
three parts according to her ages, short-term from 22-30, medium-term from 30-60 and
long-term from 60+. Financial expectations are included in this part. Also there is analysis
on her investment policies.
In the process of analyzing Mary’s financial plan, we first compare her budget to her
expectation, finding that it doesn’t match her risk profile. Then we make some changes to
her financial plan in order to make it closer to Mary’s expectation, like increase the