As a member of the Estate Planning Council  of Toronto  I have the pleasure of sharing ideas and best practices with professional colleagues at our monthly meetings downtown. My personal highlight of the meeting last week was a presentation by Paul Goldstein, a living legend in the Canadian insurance industry.

Paul is a Holocaust survivor with a distinguished 46 year (forty six!) career, decorated frequently with numerous awards and recognition from insurance companies and peers: he is an innovator, educator and top producer.  For more than 30 years Paul has consistently qualified for the Million Dollar Round Table's Top of the Table, a select group of less than 1% of all insurance advisors worldwide.

On a personal note…my own accolades… Paul has been my close friend, inspiration and personal mentor for several years. I often discuss the importance of mentors with advisors at my presentations and look forward to sharing with you the story how I pursued Paul and how we first met in a future blog post.

Paul’s presentation last week focused on the creative use of widely misunderstood financial instruments called annuities. Everyone’s heard of them, but few people really know how to use them properly.

He described the recent case of couple age 65+ with $4m sitting in a holding company. They required substantial guaranteed retirement income combined with significant tax savings. The results he obtained with annuities were very compelling.

My article in the November issue of the TaxLetter® is all about annuities and explains how business owners can use them to enjoy worry-free guaranteed income, pay less tax and leave a bigger estate for family and charity. Read “Ideal Exit Strategy” HERE.

(I assure you there was no collusion with Paul on the topic selection!)

Happy Thanksgiving to our friends in the U.S.

Have a great weekend