This is the fourth part in a series on implementing a do-it-yourself Smith Manoeuvre. You may also want to check out Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3 of the series.
Now that you are regularly withdrawing funds from the loan portion of your readvanceable mortgage and investing the proceeds in equities, there is only one step left: taxes. You should keep track of the interest paid on the investment loan, calculate the total interest expenses for the financial year and report it in Schedule 4 and Line 221 of your T1 General.
When your tax return is processed and a refund is issued, you should use the refund to pay down your mortgage and take out a loan and invest it to get the full benefit of the Smith Manoeuvre.
Notes:
I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again: Check with your accountant before implementing the SM. I’ve personally never borrowed money, invested it in index funds and claimed a tax deduction of the interest expense. So, check with your accountant or tax advisor.Despite the complexity, SM is simply a leveraging strategy. As you may know, leverage cuts both ways. There is no guarantee that even over the very long term, equities will return more than the interest you pay on the loan. That’s the risk of implementing the SM. Don’t believe anyone who tells you otherwise.In the interests of full disclosure, I have no intention of implementing the SM. I simply pay down the mortgage and am happy with guaranteed, risk-free, after-tax return of roughly 5%.An adverse tax ruling is a risk with the SM and even if interest deductions are currently allowed, they may not be in the future. For example, in the 2004 Quebec budget, interest deduction was limited to the amount of interest income in that year.
