Karlee: Hi everyone! Thanks so much for joining us. We're here today with Jared; he's participated in this tax savings strategy and wanted to share his experience with you. Thank you very much Jared for allowing me to do this case study with you. Would you mind starting by telling us a little about yourself?

Jared: Well, I'm 34 years old; I live in Edmonton, Alberta. I've been working in a car dealership for awhile now. I've got two kids, I'm married and I think I have a situation like a lot of people.

K: Before you heard about this tax saving strategy and started participating in it, what was your situation like before? Did you face any problems or issues at the time? What was your story before?

J: At the time when I first saw this tax shelter I had just quit my job the day after and from there it kind of set some things in motion. I always looked at my paycheck and saw all the income tax I paid. It was something that always bothered me because I knew that the more money I made, the more money they'd take. It kind of discerns you that if you're going to make more money, they're going to take more money and I knew that I had to make more money somehow.

I was very excited to find out that I could actually be able to finally keep all my money except of course the CPP and EI, but at least I knew that I could keep all my income tax and I knew it would be a great thing considering that year Patrick was born, my second.

K: So it hits home a lot more when the family starts growing more, doesn't it?

J: It sure does, you certainly look at the opportunity to save and make as much money as you can and certainly using tax shelters you are able to get all your money from your hard work.

K: So how exactly did you find out about this particular program?

J: I got an email about the program from an organization and I decided I had nothing to lose by attending the free information seminar, it was something that I thought, well sounds like a reasonable thing to check out. I didn't know anything about tax shelters previous, I had never even heard of them. I just saw some things on an email that caught my attention; probably the biggest thing was there's a philanthropic aspect to it and the fact that I could get all my income tax back.

Getting my income tax back was probably the biggest thing on my mind at that point; I'm still not at the point where money is not a problem. Money is still is still something that is on my mind a fair bit.

K: What made you decide to participate in this particular program? I mean, there are so many different tax shelters out there. What made this program stand out to you?

J: Once I understood how the program worked and there was really no risk to me by participating in it, that was kind of the no brainer part of it and once I understood how it worked realized there really was no risk to me because my income tax was already gone anyhow, so I had to do something to get it back; the worst case scenario the way I felt it was If I don't do anything, all the money is gone anyhow and if I do something there's a chance of getting it back. So I figured I might as well take the chance and see what happens.

K: It sounds like so far it's worked out well for you.

J: It has. I've used it in 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009 and now in 2010.

I was a little apprehensive the first year because it was my first year using a tax shelter and it paid well. I hoped they were right, it didn't sound like they were lying to me. The cheques weren't huge cheques but at the same they where money that if I didn't have it I certainly wouldn't feel good about that, but it worked the first year and from then on it paid well I think we got a good thing going.

K: We'll just kind of clarify here for people who aren't familiar with this program that in order to participate in this program, how it works is that you had to fill out an application for a loan. Do you remember how much that was for last year?

J: Last year every about every unit was around $2,200, so last year I donated about $48,000 because I donated at the beginning of the year and that is the time when the greatest benefit is available to me and I did it a couple years and I don't wait anymore because I've got money saved. I know how the program works. It's that simple, you work it into your yearly routine that's what you do. So it was $2,200 a unit, I think last year I bought three so about $6,600 bucks yet a value of $48,000.

K: So, actually the $48,000 was the loan that you essentially took out and the prepaid interest that you paid out was the $6,600. It sounds a little complicated going out to get a loan and participating in this program, what did you actually have to do yourself to go get the loan and to participate in the program, what did it entitle for you?

J: Well, they handled everything so it's really just two cheques and filling out some paper work. It's about six pages and it's mostly just your signature, your name and address and your social insurance number for the government; but other than that there's no credit check. It's a pretty simple process; if you've got money that's right in your bank account to do it by all means take out a loan you and you get a line of credit nothing else will pay you back as well as a program like this.

K: Just to clarify and get this straight for everybody; essentially you applied for a loan, you purchased HIV medical units, you donated them then to a registered Canadian charity, you received a donation receipt from the charity for the total amount of the loan that you took out, and then you sent in that donation receipt the following year when you filed your taxes. In your province, what it the tax credit for a charitable donation?

J: In Alberta it's 50%. So this year, 2010 when I finally get all my paper work filled out from a couple of the banks which I have other investments in and I'm expecting $24,000 back because that is exactly 50% of the $48,000 I donated.

K: Wow! That's a lot of tax money to be getting back for one year and when you think of it that way, that money would have been lost forever and gone to the government but now it's in your pocket and you can decide what to do with it. You've been participating in this program for a few years; what have you been doing now with your extra income tax money that you are getting back?

J: Well, I live in Alberta and sometimes it gets hot here (even though not that long!) so I've installed A/C in the house and tiled the floors.

I've got over $100,000 invested in offshore property now. I invest in the stock market just a few thousand dollars at a time, but I'm not concerned greatly if I lose it. It's enabled me to take some more risks, some more rewards.

My car is paid off - I don't owe any money on any vehicle. I still owe money on my house but it's put me in a more stable financial situation than some people in the country.

You feel better in knowing that most everything you've worked for you're actually getting. Having your income tax back makes all the difference in the world, especially if you work hard for your money, you should get all of it.

K: Now you're getting all this money back, you're reinvesting it, you've paid off a lot of debt; have you noticed any other kinds of benefit in your life because of this? Has it had a greater impact on you than what you just originally thought the money would do, has it affected you in more ways?

J: That's a good question because originally I thought the money would allow me to do a lot of the same things, but having a large amount of money like $24,000 is certainly a lot for a working person. It's something most people don't ever get to see a large lump sum like that in a cheque given back to them and it enables you to take advantage of the opportunity you never even knew of before or never knew that they could even be available to you, and that's probably the biggest thing that I probably didn't see.

Opportunities are opening up and now I actually have the chance to take advantage of them whereas before, I might have not looked because I knew it would be no way to pay for them, and now I've got those options so I certainly look a lot more and a lot harder to see what else there might be because you have the means to do something about it.

K: I just have a question here for you 'cause it's true that a lot of people hear the word tax savings and they automatically get really scared and close up their minds thinking "oh my gosh the CRA is going to come after me", "what's going to happen"? What is your experience and have you had any contact with the CRA? How has that been for you?

J: Well, that's the thing, before I hadn't had much contact with the CRA, I usually had to pay my income tax at the end of the year or one time I had to pay back some other money. So, I hadn't had a whole lot of experience with the CRA, now, I don't feel I'm an expert in dealing with the CRA; but I understand that it's not a scary process anymore.

The people that have setup the tax shelter they understand how the CRA works and they help educate their donors on that stuff. The CRA likes to send a questionnaire every year, there are 45 questions. The companies that deal with the tax shelter they send us the answers to it. Learning to deal with the CRA and realizing that they're not all that scary is probably something that everyone should know because a lot of people are concerned with audits and that kind of stuff but when it comes down to it, the CRA isn't going to audit you, they're going to audit the program that you're working with.

I think that having done it for four years, I feel very confident that there's nothing to be concerned about at all. The CRA, they're just a big government entity, they're doing their job. Millionaires generally don't pay a whole lot of income tax because they pay accountants to do their job, and now that we have access to a tax shelter, somebody else is basically getting paid to help us or save us from paying too much income tax. That's the way I look at it.

K: I know that's what a lot of a people who have donated think to. So thank you for being able to share that with other people so that they can start to see the other side of the story as well.

One last question for you here Jared, what would you recommend or what would you say to someone who is even just considering looking in to this program or interested in finding out more about it? What kind of advice would you have for them?

J: I would say that you've got nothing to lose by looking at it. It certainly is information you probably don't have right now because you are probably not participating in a tax shelter 'cause you're even not as open as I was to it originally because I had no idea that there even was such a thing out there. If I had known, I would have been using one my whole life it's a very simple program that if you understood it and use it, it's just amazing.

There's nothing to lose, everything to gain. If there's something I've learned is that it is difficult to get credible information about tax shelters from people who don't use tax shelters or don't create them. They're a thing all by themselves, you can't just talk to any accountant and say, what do you think about this tax shelter?

Unfortunately, most accountants don't deal with tax shelters at all, they don't have any idea about them; it would be like asking a mechanic to mow your lawn or do something that he doesn't know a thing about.

I suppose that I can say you have to take some things on faith and realize, what's the worst case scenario? The worst case scenario is you've already lost all your money anyhow the best case is, the people in the tax shelter are going to show you how to get it back.

K: There you go! Then you can invest it and get that money working for you instead of somebody else. Well, that's an amazing story Jared and I'm so excited for you to hear that this has made such a change in your life and that it really has impacted you and your family in such a positive way and it's exciting to hear that people's lives are really being changed because of this. It's so simple really like you said and it makes such a difference. So, thank you so very much again for sharing your story with us all and hopefully this will impact some more people lives as well.

J: I hope so; it's done great things for me. I wish everyone would take advantage of it, if they could see the things that I've seen in the last four years, it would just blow their minds and they would say "why didn't I do it sooner?"

K: Well, thanks so very much Jared for your time and I hope to keep hearing more great stories from you about what you get to do every year now because of getting your tax money back.