Feb 26, 2014

UK DAILY MAIL: HOW TO REDUCE PRIVATE SCHOOL FEES.

Private school costs: From the age of five to 18, it will set you back around £195,745 per child 1) A DISCOUNT FOR HELPING THE SCHOOL INVEST These can see parents save thousands of pounds if a school has charitable status. The average fees cost £4,765 a term — not exactly loose change — which is why most parents pay by monthly direct debit. But parents who pay their children’s school fees upfront as a lump sum — anything from a term to several years’ worth — can take part in these schemes. More... School fees: How to invest and pay for education I must live 7 years before money I gift escapes IHT - what about cash I withdraw and spend myself? Death duties aren't just for Downton: How to keep inheritance tax to a minimum The school will take the money and invest it in low-risk investments. Any profit the school makes is tax-free because of their charitable status. The school then splits the benefit with the parents. Those parents are given what the schools class as a discount based on the profit the school makes from the investment. And the school keeps whatever is left over. Someone investing in this way on their own could be hit with a capital gains tax charge of 28 per cent, unless a parent was able to take funds out of an Isa. Most top private schools have a scheme like this. Harrow, which charges £11,095 per term, describes it as a ‘tax-efficient advance fees scheme, which offers attractive returns’. Radley College, in Oxfordshire, claims one in six of its boys have their fees paid in advance.It adds: ‘It can be very beneficial when parents are assessed at the higher rate of tax.There should be no involvement with capital gains tax.’ The Independent Schools’ Bursars Association says: ‘A higher rate taxpayer may find the scheme attractive even at a rate somewhat lower than could be obtained in the financial markets.’ 2) START A FAMILY BUSINESS This involves granny and granddad setting up a family business and naming the children as the shareholders. The school fees are then paid through dividends to the children. The grandparents need to be wealthy and offer to pay for the school fees, rather than leave an inheritance. They put an asset — such as property or shares — into the family firm. When the school fees are due, they pay out a dividend to the grand- children by creating special shares to give them — calling them B shares or Z shares. This payment is tax-free for the children because it is classed as income tax and they should not have any other earnings. Tricks: Grandparents can set up a family business, name the children as shareholders and the school fees are then paid through dividends to the children Tricks: Grandparents can set up a family business, name the children as shareholders and the school fees are then paid through dividends to the children Everyone has a tax-free personal allowance of £9,440. It’s important that the grand- parents set up the business — and not the parents — because parents can’t gift investments to the child without incurring tax. This is so that parents don’t try to take advantage of a child’s tax status for their own gain. This scheme tends to be more popular with families fortunate enough to have wealth across several generations, rather than those who are self-made. Though, with greater numbers of grandparents retiring with large amounts of equity in their home, many are taking money out of their property to help relatives. However, this scheme is not straightforward. The actor Jack Hawkins, who appeared in The Bridge On The River Kwai and Ben Hur, lost a tax case in which he tried to have income paid through a family business to his children. 3) INVEST OFFSHORE FOR THE CHILDREN Parents can invest a lump sum in an offshore bond and then name themselves as trustees and the children as beneficiaries. The bond is then split into a number of policies — with each one having enough to pay out for each term of school fees. TiM iPhone puff By assigning the policies to the children, the tax on the gain will be payable by the child and not by the parent. Everyone is allowed to cash in £10,900 of capital gains a year without incurring a tax bill. The word ‘offshore’ conjures up pictures of millionaires sun-lounging in tax havens. But these tax-efficient schemes are often used by middle-income families. ‘These savings can be important for ordinary families. They’re making lifestyle sacrifices, such as not going on holidays or upgrading the cars, to afford the fees,’ says Tim Stovold, tax partner at Kingston Smith. 4) CASH IN A PENSION Under the rules, you can take a quarter of your pension pot as a tax-free lump sum from 55. As a higher-rate (40 per cent) taxpayer, you’d have to earn around £8,000 to pay fees of £4,765 after tax. But anything put in a pension has had income tax repaid to you. So, by taking it as a tax-free lump sum you can avoid any further income tax. It doesn’t matter if a person is planning on retiring at 55, they can still take their lump sum. For most, the money will come a little late for school fees. So, an alternative trick is to increase the mortgage to pay off the fees. Then, when you hit 55, you withdraw the lump sum and pay it off. 5) HAGGLE FOR A BETTER DEAL It is possible to haggle for lower fees. Find out what the school needs. Is it cash? Expertise? A legacy? ‘If a school is in the middle of a capital intensive building project, it may need cash upfront and so could agree to a discount if you pay the fees as a lump sum,’ says Mike Batchelor, head of investment advisers Broadstone Private Office. Would the school be interested in a bursary for the school in lieu of school fees? If you set up a philanthropic trust, there may be the expectation that there will be further donations through later generations. Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/money/bills/article-2567743/The-five-tricks-rich-parents-use-cut-private-school-costs.html#ixzz2uRE86xT0 Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook

Feb 19, 2014

AAPS: "BUMPS IN THE ROAD" The need for an Independent Medical Profession.

Why We Need an Independent Medical Profession. By: Richard Amerling, M.D. In a recent debate, I pointed out that far from helping the uninsured, ObamaCare had created millions of new uninsured. My opponent responded “whenever you try something this big, there are always going to be some bumps in the road.” That statement sums up the totalitarian mindset of the hard left, which is, “the ends justify the means.” So what if millions lose their insurance? We are on the bumpy road to nirvana, where everyone has access to the same level of care, regardless of income. If a relative handful of people are inconvenienced, injured, or even killed, well, that’s too bad for them! It’s all for the greater good. To make an omelet you have to break some eggs! This is what they say! The hard left has a high tolerance for the killing of millions of “bumps in the road” en route to Communist totalitarian nirvanas in Soviet Russia under Stalin, Mao’s Cultural Revolution and “Great Leap Forward” and in the killing fields of Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge. More recently, Barack Obama used the phrase in reference to the attack in Benghazi, which killed four Americans. The medical profession’s Hippocratic ethic of caring for individual patients, placing their welfare above other considerations, stands in the way of the utopian statists. We stand for those who for the statists are mere “bumps in the road.” We care for those who are and who will be denied care, as rationing inevitably rears its head. We speak out for them. This is why the Left must control doctors. And this is why we must resist. We speak out against the destructive folly of standardized care where one-size-fits-all practice guidelines substitute for the considered judgment of individual physicians and their unique patients. Rationing of care in response to the shortages created by central planning, regulations, and price controls is only the beginning. Leftism is intertwined with anti-humanism, which is literally a cult of death. We see this in their lust to protect abortion, in their quest to limit end-of-life care, to accelerate death through starvation (as in the Liverpool Care Pathway) or euthanasia, which is rapidly gaining ground in Europe and in America. And we see this in the form of radical environmentalism, which views man as a cancer on the planet, as no better than even the lowliest species, and worthy only of depopulation. The pseudoscientific man-made global warming crowd seeks to de-industrialize the West, which would have profound consequences to health and health care, among other disasters. It would be wise to remember another pseudoscientific fad from the early part of the last century that developed a following among the intelligentsia. Eugenics, championed by the Communist Margaret Sanger, promoted selective breeding, forced sterilization, abortion, and euthanasia as a way to improve the human race. It never went far in the U.S. because our private doctors, watching out for their patients, didn’t go along. Not so in Nazi Germany, where the medical profession was under the thumb of government thanks to socialized health care. Doctors under the Third Reich not only went along, they actively participated in euthanizing psychiatric patients and deformed or retarded children. We know where this led. There are not only compelling reasons for doctors (and patients!) to declare independence, there is great urgency that we do so. A government with the power to declare private insurance contracts null and void will not long shy away from declaring private health care arrangements illegal. It is crucial that we rapidly establish a critical mass of tens of thousands of private physicians, who collectively care for millions of patients, before they get around to closing that hatch. Richard Amerling, MD is an Associate Professor of Clinical Medicine and a renowned academic nephrologist at the Beth Israel Medical Center in New York City. Dr . Amerling studied medicine at the Catholic University of Louvain in Belgium, graduating cum laude in 1981. He completed a medical residency at the New York Hospital Queens and a nephrology fellowship at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania. He has written and lectured extensively on health care issues and is President-elect of the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons. Dr. Amerling is the author of the Physicians' Declaration of Independence and is a seasoned speaker and on-air contributor.

Feb 17, 2014

MONTHLY DIRECT DEBIT & TAX CREDIT PROVINCIAL POLITICAL CONTRIBUTIONS.

Yearly donation of $2821 = $235/month Yearly cost after Tax credit = $1581

OHIP UNINSURED LAB. TESTS -. MONEY MAKES FOR MODERN MEDICINE.

OHIP policy based on NEVER DEFINED in 44 years "MEDICAL NECESSITY". MEDICAL NECESSITY based on GUIDELINES COMMITTEES which means that here may be a 10 - 15 year delay before OHIP pays for a new test During this delay a Private patient can either pay for the test or have it done in USA (e.g. MAYO LABS vs FEDEX/UPS etc). Interesting that Canuck Federal employees are angry that they will have to pay 50% of Supplementary Medical insurance instead of only 25%.In Ontario the CPSO can attack a Doc for even INFORMING a patient about a non-OHIP paid test. Safest legally and medically to practice with patients who are financially secure.

SPECIALIST vs TRAINEE MEDICINE

In PRIVATE MEDICINE the Specialist commands and the Juniors obey In STATE (& Insurance discounted directly-paid medicine) patients are used to train Juniors who only ask for Specialist advice when they think necessary. Also patients are used as Experimental "Guinea Pigs" in Trials.Also in State Hospitals,to save money,Nurses are used to replace MD Interns.