Average card APR climbs to all-time high of 15.29 percent: CreditCards.com Weekly Credit Card Rate Report + MORE Dec 28th

MONTREAL — Canadians will ring in the new year with a number of tax changes that will affect the bottom line of federal and provincial governments. Here’s a look at some of them:
Nationally:
The federal government is ending four child tax credits this year: arts, fitness, education and textbooks in 2017. Parents of children under the age of 16 can pre-pay 2017 arts and fitness programs to claim them on 2016 tax returns as long as total spending for 2016 does not exceed $250 and $500 limits, respectively.
It is also cancelling income splitting for families, a tax reduction measure that allowed someone to transfer up to $50,000 of income to a spouse with lower income if they had a child under 18 years of age. The tax credit for income splitting was capped at $2,000.
Offsetting those changes are the Canada Child Benefit and changes to Employment Insurance benefits introduced in 2016.
“High income earners in most provinces will pay more but for the majority of Canadians, these two changes will mean more money in their pockets,” Canadian Taxpayers Federation federal director Aaron Wudrick said Wednesday in a news release…

You don’t get access to the loan until later, but payments are reported to the credit bureaus, building a positive credit history

Q: I am a single 70-year-old woman with a reasonable mortgage of about $115,000 on my home. I have no family and no dependents. On my limited budget I find life insurance on my mortgage is a cost I would rather do without. Do I need life insurance? And if so, then what for?
—Katerina, Halifax
A: You raise a good point Katerina. In general, life insurance is most necessary when you have dependents who would be impacted financially by your death. Typically, life insurance is used as a way to pay off a large debt, such as a mortgage on a home that you want to leave to your heirs. In many of these cases, a term life insurance policy is often the most inexpensive choice and the full face value of the policy pays out on the policy holder’s death. (This is also a great option for many families who often get mortgage life insurance instead, which is more expensive than term life and the payout declines as the face value of the mortgage declines.) Other popular reasons for having life insurance include: Income replacement for dependents; to pay off debt like a mortgage or a line of credit; to create an emergency fund; to cover final expenses incurred upon your death; for estate planning reasons or to leave money to a favourite charity…

MONTREAL — Canadians will ring in the new year with a number of tax changes that will affect the bottom line of federal and provincial governments. Here’s a look at some of them:
Nationally:
The federal government is ending four child tax credits this year: arts, fitness, education and textbooks.
It is also cancelling income splitting for families, a tax reduction measure that allowed someone to transfer up to $50,000 of income to a spouse with lower income if they had a child under 18 years of age. The tax credit for income splitting was capped at $2,000.
Offsetting those changes are the Canada Child Benefit and changes to Employment Insurance benefits introduced in 2016.

How the federal budget will affect income tax

“High income earners in most provinces will pay more but for the majority of Canadians, these two changes will mean more money in their pockets,” Canadian Taxpayers Federation federal director Aaron Wudrick said Wednesday in a news release.
Several other changes at the federal level will affect life insurance, business owners selling their companies and some mutual funds…

Dec. 28, 2016: Average rates on new credit card offers spiked again this week, according to the CreditCards.com Weekly Credit Card Rate Report.