Daniel W. Elliot, CPA

  Recently I was working on the annual contributor report for a Defined Benefit Pension Plan (DBPP). While the corporate world has traded these in favour of Defined Contribution Pension Plans (DCPP) to no longer deal with the headache and liability, there are many reasons why employees should consider converting as well. Let’s say your DBPP is 2% per year of your average best 5 years to a maximum of 35 years.    At the simplest level, if you worked for 35 years and your average best 5 was $100,000 per year, you might see a $70,000 per year pension. But with most plans, when you die your spouse receives 50%, and when they die your adult children get zero. Also, if you married after you started drawing your pension, your spouse gets zero let alone your children or grandchildren.   Now consider Defined Contribution Plans where your employer matches you 1:1 of 9% and 9% of your wages similar to a Defined Benefit Plan contribution rate, and it all goes into your Regi...

  This is not the days of old, and you are not the King’s Men; you exist to serve the public, the public does not exist to serve you.’   An area requiring a major overhaul in the not-for-profit sector is the relationship with funders, in particular for programs sponsored by government entities at the various levels. Not only are not-for-profit organizations treated as subordinate extensions of the government body they perform services on behalf of, but the demands imposed by funders are overwhelming thereby eroding the ability for effective service delivery.     In December 2006, the Treasury Board of the Government of Canada issued an independent report called: From Red Tape to Clear Results - The Report of the Independent Blue Ribbon Panel on Grant and Contribution Programs. In summary, government departments were making it far too complicated for not-for-profit organizations to deliver services, and these departments were to back off so more could be spent on serv...