As a 12-year-old boy, a major school construction project meant that I attended Grade 7 in the afternoons from 1 to 5 p.m.
As the youngest son of a divorced working mom, I desperately wanted a bike and to play organized hockey, two things which my family couldn't afford. Fortunately the unorthodox school schedule allowed me free time to take on my first job.
Nearby chicken farmers needed workers to load their mature birds for delivery to slaughter houses. Presumably because the birds were sleepy at night (making them easier to load) the working hours for a chicken catcher were from midnight to three in the morning, or thereabouts.
As one of the younger boys on the job, I struggled. The barns were usually filled with many thousands of chickens, packed tightly all along the floor, sleeping, cackling, and pooping. Our task was to grab six birds by the ankles, three in each hand, and walk them to the loading trucks which were parked up against the side of the barn.
The birds had two disturbing defense mechanisms. The first was to poop their warm, slimy discharge generously all over my hands just as I grabbed them by the legs. The smell was horrific in the enclosed barn, and there was simply no escaping it.
The second defense mechanism involved cackling and pecking wildly at my legs as I carried them toward the loading area. The stronger boys could lift the birds away from their body to avoid the pecking, but I was not one the stronger boys.
There was at that time a new shampoo on the market, which bragged that it would make your hair smell sweet, herbal, and fruity all day long. The advertising and the smell both worked very well. Visions of gorgeous hair models with delicious aromatic shining hair rarely left my adolescent mind. How I wished I could substitute that inviting aroma into my deep dark, smelly world dominated by so many thousands of screaming, pecking, feathered dung monsters.
The next night I brought a shampoo lid with me to work, thinking to periodically substitute the sweet smell of shampoo for the sour stench of bird poop.
It started well enough. After delivering each load of birds to the truck, on the return trip across the barn I pulled out my shampoo lid from my pocket and sniffed it, stopping here and there, closing my eyes to dream of shiny-haired princesses with silky sweet smelling heads. I must have looked a little strange, a slight grin on my face from time to time, like that happy boy at the back of the class who always seemed to giggle at the wrong time, and got special help from the teacher's aid.
The shift supervisor, one of the older boys from the neighbourhood, was not impressed. After a few warnings, he seized the offending shampoo lid from me and pressed it in to a pile of straw and dung with his boot until it was no longer recognizable. Then he kicked me in the backside, and cussed, sending me back to work.
Eventually I earned enough money for a bike, and a couple of hockey sticks. My dad pitched in for the rest.
My clients, most of whom have been very successful financially, invariably have fond memories of their first jobs. This work taught them several things, among them that the reward of a hard day's work is far beyond the money earned. Still, in many cases their efforts were an important part of their family's finances from an early age.
A Testamentary Trust is an excellent way to control the distribution of your money after death, avoiding the potential squandering of your hard-earned money by spendthrift youth who may have somehow missed the lessons of a hard day's work in their youth.
Testamentary trusts are created in your Will and thus do not take effect until your death. They can be used to address a wide range of planning objectives including:
-- Increased control over when and how money is distributed to your beneficiaries,
-- protection of your assets from your beneficiaries' creditors, and
-- An opportunity to save tax.
Significant tax savings are possible if income is taxed in the trust rather than in the hands of your beneficiaries.
A testamentary trust provision in the Will can also make sense in the following scenarios:
-- Individuals in second marriages
-- Disabled or minor beneficiaries
-- Concern about inheritance being accessed by son-in-law or daughter-in-law
-- U.S. citizens
-- Beneficiaries are high-income earners or will receive a large inheritance.
Mark Ryan is an advisor with RBC Wealth Management, Dominion Securities, and can be reached at [email protected]. This information is not intended as nor does it constitute tax or legal advice. Readers should consult their own lawyer, accountant or other professional advisor when planning to implement a strategy.
