Income Taxes for Investors (Northern Ontario, Canada)

[Chuck M.]

Hoping for some of the more experienced REI's could provide some guidance.

My wife and got into investing almost by accident. Her parents needed housing and we wanted to control & subsidize their cost of living through their final years.

Blessed by the HELOC gods and good appraisals, we now own 9 units in Northern Ontario.

Because it was easy and we kept getting approved, we did 8 of 9 through our primary lender. This "hey here's another that meets our criteria, let's buy it" approach led us to do all the transactions outside of any corporate structure.

Some back of napkin math says that next year when we fully realize all our 9 units of income personally will be quite interesting. The costs involved to move to the Cherry Chan recommended 3-tier corporate structure (legals, land transfer tax) however don't seem to work either with the small amount of units we own.

At this point we're being advised that our only strategy is to buy as much RRSPs as we can afford. We haven't taken advantage of depreciating our properties for fear it'll hurt us on portfolio exit.

Has anyone else faced this dilemma? What did you do? Any recommended accountants/financial advisors?

Chuck