Finding innovative ways to bridge the gap between wealth and health requires a team approach. At Bridgewell, our vision early on was to bring together highly experienced professionals with diverse skill sets to help our clients achieve financial wellness in every aspect of their lives. Doing so requires collaboration with partners whose values not only align with ours, but who are prepared to take the time to fully understand our clients’ needs and develop effective solutions to help them live better, longer.
One of those partners is James MacGowan, founder and principal at Halifax-based J. MacGowan Tax Advisory Limited. Jim is Bridgewell’s go-to tax specialist, a key member of our extended team and a service provider whose expertise we rely on to help our clients make smart, proactive tax planning decisions. In our latest Meet the Bridgewell team profile, Jim provides details about his work with Bridgewell, shares highlights from his impressive resume and offers thoughts on how Canada’s tax landscape has evolved over his many decades as a tax practitioner.
Can you provide some details about your professional background?
I was with Deloitte for 36 years and a partner for about 25 of them, specializing in Canadian tax. I spent most of my time on the East Coast in Halifax, and then I moved to Alberta, where I ran a private company practice, and also the private company tax practice nationally, for five years before returning to Halifax. I decided to retire and I still do a fair amount of tax planning. I’ve also been specializing in human behaviour and influence and spend a lot of time coaching people in that area. That’s a lot around influence sales with a particular emphasis on life insurance. Now I have a sub-specialty of life insurance, taxation and anything to do with structuring or planning insurance, reviewing policies or proposals.
For fun, I’m also mentoring 20- to 40-year-old millennials. I meet with them weekly, so I spend a lot of time on that, and then use a lot of the information that I’ve gathered around influence and happiness in my work with them.
You have decades of industry experience. Can you talk about how you’ve seen Canada’s tax and accounting landscape evolve over that time?
Tax has gotten more complex, and the government is increasingly worried about people doing sophisticated planning. So, they’ve strengthened a lot of the rules around notifiable transactions. In many cases, you now have to disclose transactions to the authorities before you’ve executed them, or just after you’ve executed. Also, the General Anti-Avoidance Rule, which is the main legislation that the Canada Revenue Agency uses, has gotten stronger.
We’re moving to a somewhat more compliance-based tax environment like what you see in the U.S., which is far more complicated, far more detailed. One of the things that makes insurance so fascinating is that it’s still very much endorsed by the government, and it represents, in my view, the next frontier of tax planning that’s still relatively safe. The challenge is getting that message out to clients, but also to accountants. I think there’s an appetite, or at least there should be an appetite, to look at some insurance strategies that aren’t particularly aggressive, that are somewhat government endorsed and are very effective.
How do you collaborate with the Bridgewell team?
Quite often I do strategic tax reviews with Bridgewell’s business owner clients and ask for some fairly basic information, with the view of determining if there are any tax planning opportunities they’re missing. Are there any risks that they’re not aware of? Then I come back and have a discussion with them to identify those opportunities. Again, that’s often a broad-based strategic tax review. In some cases, that could be a shareholder agreement or a corporate structuring issue. That’s what makes the Bridgewell offering so appealing. It’s meant to be a no-holds-barred second look at things, but there’s no commitment.
What do you think is unique about Bridgewell’s service offering and culture?
Bridgewell does a great job of stepping back, assessing the situation, determining whether there’s a need for strategic planning and looking at possible solutions. They bring me into files where, quite frankly, my role is to minimize the tax. That’s why Bridgewell is so effective. The process is important to them, and it shows. They’re really about taking the role of a trusted advisor, talking about the issues that clients are facing and then bringing in advisors who can help provide that solution.
What do you like to do away from the office?
I’m a big sports fan. I spend a lot of time going to sporting events. I do a lot of fitness activity, and I really enjoy the mentoring around human behaviour. If I have a mantra that I use, it’s that I’m unfinished at 62 years of age. I probably have about 7,000 days left on this Earth, so I wake up each day and ask myself, ‘Whose life can I make a little better?’ The mentoring is a great way to do that. I’ve worked with more than 70 people thus far, ranging in age from 18 to 46. I take them through a process that’s usually 12 to 15 months long. My view is that some of the younger people I work with have a 60-year runway, and if they can just avoid the pitfalls and errors that I’ve made, they’re going to do great things.
The Bridgewell team
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