Our Team

Jim McIntyre CPA, CA, TEP | Director

As a founding director of McIntyre & Associates, Jim focuses his energy on taxation and tax planning and specializes in wealth preservation and estate planning. Jim works on the leading edge of new trends, policies and procedures and shares his extensive knowledge of tax law through regular seminars and speaking engagements.

His expertise also encompasses trusts, wills, corporate reorganizations and the provision of financial and business management advisory services to both owner-managed businesses and professionals.

Jim began his career as an accountant in 1977. He holds a Bachelor of Commerce degree from Concordia University and received his Chartered Accountant designation in 1979. In 2000, Jim became a registered trust and estate planner.

Jim is a member of the Canadian Tax Foundation, a member of the Society of Trust and Estate Practitioners and a Director of the Ottawa Estate Planning Council. He has also been actively involved with several political leadership campaigns.

Jim is an avid reader and enjoys recreational and athletic pursuits with his family.

Brent Hiscoe CPA, CA, MBA | Director

As a founding director of McIntyre & Associates, Brent provides accounting and auditing services to a wide variety of owner managed businesses and not-for-profit organizations.

Brent also oversees all tax planning and compliance matters in the firm's tax department. His areas of expertise include Canadian personal tax, dispute resolution with CRA, international taxation, research and development tax credits and taxation issues related to company reorganizations.

Brent began his career as an accountant in 1986. He holds an MBA from the University of Ottawa and received his Chartered Accountant designation in 1988. Brent has completed the CPA Canada In-Depth Tax Course.

Married with two sons, Brent enjoys spending time maintaining his fish pond which is stocked with koi, and pursuing recreational activities with his family.

Jennifer Brownlee CPA, CA | Director

As a director of McIntyre & Associates, Jennifer oversees assurance services. Her expertise in the area of financial reporting and assurance services enables her to provide quality, leading-edge business advisory services to clients of all types.

Jennifer is also responsible for the firm's quality assurance practices - ensuring that all engagements are conducted in accordance with the standards of the profession and that the highest quality of work is performed on every engagement.

Jennifer began her career as an accountant in 1985. She holds a Bachelor of Commerce from Carleton University and joined the firm after obtaining her Chartered Accountant designation in 1987.

Jennifer enjoys hiking and spending time in the outdoors with her family.

Larry Hasson CPA, CA, BSc | Director

Larry joined the firm in 2009 after working at a national firm for two years. His area of expertise is assurance engagements, including IFRS (International Financial Reporting Standards) financial statements. Larry also works on personal and corporate reorganizations and tax planning engagements.

Larry began his career as an accountant in 2007. He holds a Bachelor of Science from the University of Western Ontario and received his Chartered Accountant designation in 2010. Larry has completed the CPA Canada In-Depth Tax course.

Larry is very active and routinely competes in Ironman triathlons. When he isn’t out swimming, biking or running, Larry can be found at home or out hiking with his wife and dog.

Gabriel Poirier CPA, CGA | Manager

Gabriel has been with the firm since 2012 and enjoys working closely with small owner managed businesses.

Fluently bilingual, Gabriel began his career as an accountant in 1986. He holds a Bachelor of Commerce from the University of Ottawa and obtained his Certified General Accountant designation in 1992. In addition to a 3 year period working at a large accounting firm in the late eighties, Gabriel has worked for accounting firms since 2000. He spent the previous ten years working within high tech companies.

Married with two sons, Gabriel enjoys a variety of sports and spending time with family.

A Tax Effective Way To Pay Off Your Med School Debt

You’ve just finished your residency and have finally started practicing medicine. Congratulations!

If you’re like most people finishing med school, you have a pile of student debt, which is weighing on your mind. You’re probably also getting lots of advice from colleagues, family, friends and financial planners.

Your first instinct might be to pay it down as fast as possible. Let’s call this the traditional approach. It’s a good strategy, but it might not be the best plan.

Another strategy is to set up a medical professional corporation that will enable you to leave money in the corporation and pay taxes at a lower rate and invest the savings. Let’s call this the combined approach.

In order to explore the difference between these two approaches to paying off your medical school debt, let’s start with certain assumptions based on common scenarios that we often see.

• Debt is at $100,000 and interest is being accrued at 3%
• Annual income from medical services is $200,000
• Your spouse contributes $25,000 to the household income
• Your annual family budget for personal expenses, mortgage, travel, clothing etc. is $80,000
• You have elected to be remunerated using a growingly popular dividends only option (using 2013 tax rates)
• Investments are assumed to be earning 6% per annum tax effected down to 3%.

The Traditional Approach

The traditional approach involves putting your head down, working really hard and paying off your debt as fast as possible. With this option, you would only incorporate once your debt is paid off. The debt would be fully repaid during the middle of year two. By the end of year three, there would be $176,854 in your corporation’s investment account.

In this scenario you would earn all of your income via self employment in the first year. Once you have paid your personal expenses and personal taxes you would be able to put $68,658 towards your debt, but there would be no money left to invest. In year two, you would spend part of the year self-employed, pay off the remainder of the debt and then you would incorporate in the middle of the year.  The rest of the year you would be paid via dividends of $13,654 from your corporation. In year three you would earn the full income within the corporation and pay yourself dividends in the amount of $59,000. The remaining funds would remain in the corporation to be invested.

The Combined Approach

The second option is called the combined approach. This option involves setting up a medical corporation early and paying yourself enough dividends to cover your personal expenses. Additional dividends are paid out (to be used for debt repayment), only until you reach the top marginal tax rate. The reason for doing so is that once you go over that top marginal tax rate you would pay more in tax than you would in interest on your loan.

The debt in this scenario is repaid by the end of the third year rather than the second year. However, at the end of year three you have $203,685 within your corporate investment account.

In this scenario you would pay yourself annual dividends right from the start – $105,000 in years one and two and $102,000 in year three. After paying personal taxes and personal expenses, the rest of the money would go towards paying off personal debt.

The total difference yields a tax savings/deferral of $26,831 over 3 years. In order to be accurate, we must also factor in the additional corporate accounting costs you would incur by incorporating one year sooner. These fees run between $2,000 and $3,000, so the total benefit would actually be $23,831- $24,831. This approach works for many situations and in certain circumstances the benefits can be much larger. For example, if your spouse is earning lower or no income, you can income split through the corporation to further increase the tax savings.

If you think this approach might work for you, be sure to speak with a qualified accountant or tax practitioner to find out what steps you’ll need to take.

By Larry Hasson CPA, CA

lhasson@mcintyreca.com

613-726-7788 ext.249

McIntyre & AssociatesProfessional Corporation
200 – 900 Morrison Drive
Ottawa, ON
K2H 8K7