May 20, 2021
An interview with Ryan Ackers on Individual Pension Plans and Retirement Compensation Arrangements.
Ryan is Vice President of Business Development and Client Relations at Gordon B. Lange and Associates (“GBL”). He has become one of Western Canada’s experts on Individual Pension Plans (“IPP”) and Retirement Compensation Arrangements (“RCA”). Ryan helps businesses and professional corporation owners between British Columbia and Manitoba manage corporate taxes along the way leading to a wealthier retirement.
**For the full interview please listen to the most recent CM Group’s “Free Lunch Podcast, Episode 52 ‘IPP: a Supercharged RRSP?’”**
Colin and Greg: It’s great to have you on the show, Ryan, to get started can you tell us your story? How did you end up where you are today?
Ryan: I started my career working with CIBC in the Special Products group, dealing with a lot of unique products. As I started my career, I ended up moving into headhunting where I helped launch a couple of business with Canada's largest recruitment firm. And that's what got me out to Calgary. I was born and raised in small town Ontario and lived in Toronto for a few years and later got moved to Calgary with a former employer. I was recruited to come join GBL a couple of years after that. So it was the opportunity to work with unique products again and help kind of grow a business that isn't quite as well-known as other businesses.
Colin and Greg: Just for the listeners. What is GBL stand for?
Ryan: GBL stands for Gordon B. Lange and Associates; Gordon B. Lange being our founder who founded the company back in 1995.
Colin and Greg: Right on. And can you tell the listeners a little bit about what GBL does?
Ryan: GBL’s whole reason for being is to empower business owners from a retirement and tax standpoint. Since 1995 we have been the largest provider of IPPs and RCAs in Canada. We're headquartered here in Calgary. We have an office in Toronto as well as we service the country from coast to coast. We also offer a few other products as well for business owners such as fair market valuations of life insurance. If we need to move policies between corporation, a corporation or corporation to personal and health benefit plans and defined contribution and things like that.
Colin and Greg: Well, listen, I think today we're going to focus in on a couple of the items you mentioned, specifically on IPPs and RCAs. So first of all, what are IPP’s and RCA’s and how do they differ from each other?
Ryan: Yes, I'll start with the IPP. The IPP, we like to refer to it as a “supercharged RRSP” for business owners and incorporated professionals. In a lot of ways it acts very similarly to an RRSP, though we have some added features. With an IPP, for example, I like to say it does three things for most people and four things for some.
1. It lets you put more into it than you can with a traditional RRSP.
2. Every single dollar that goes into the IPP is sponsored by the Business Owners Corporation and therefore tax deductible by the Business Owners Corporation.
3. We've got some risk mitigation so the IPP assets are held in trust off the corporate books and are therefore creditor protected.
4. In some cases we get some pretty unique estate planning as well, such as the ability to pass money to the next generation without having to go through the Estate.
It really is like a supercharged RRSP for business owners.
Now, the RCA as an actuarial firm, it blows our hair back, but we like to refer to it as a supercharged IPP. The RCA allows for, in most cases, quite a bit more funding room than an IPP would allow for and we really see the RCA used in specific circumstances. So if a business owner sets up an IPP and needs a bit more funding room, we can then set up an RCA to be able to get them some more room. It's also great in special situations. So if somebody is coming into a large sum of money for example, through an executive severance or through golden handcuffs if a company were to set up a retirement allowance. A person can set up an RCA to kind of hold on to those assets and then the individual can draw down as they see fit from the RCA.
For more questions and answers with Ryan Ackers please refer to our Podcast.
Stay safe, stay happy, stay well!
-The CM Group