Should you buy life insurance to pay for tax owed upon death?

Hard versus soft assets

You mention that your estate is made up of hard and soft assets, Nazim. I assume by hard assets you mean real estate. And by soft assets you mean cash, stocks, bonds, mutual funds and/or exchange-traded funds (ETFs).

Your soft assets can be very liquid and used to pay the tax that your estate owes. That tax is not due until April 30 of the year following when your executor files your final tax return. If you die between November 1 and December 31, there is an extension to six months after your death for your executor to file your tax return and pay the tax owing. So, there’s always at least six months to come up with the funds required to pay income tax on death, and there’s more than six months when a death occurs between January 1 and October 31.

Since soft assets are considered sold upon death, there is generally no advantage for your beneficiaries to keep those assets rather than turn them into cash or into other investments of their choosing.

Your hard assets, Nazim, are obviously less liquid. If there is a special property, like a family cottage or a rental property, they choose to keep, I can appreciate how you might want to make sure they can do that without being forced to sell.

Should you buy insurance to cover tax owed upon death?

Your cash and investments may provide sufficient funds to pay taxes owed upon death. Or your beneficiaries may choose to sell one or more of your real estate properties. You could buy life insurance to pay the tax, but I find this strategy is oversold or misunderstood. I will explain with an example.

Let’s say you are 62 years old, and your life expectancy is another 25 years, based on your current health. If you buy a life insurance policy that requires a level premium of $5,000 per year for life, and you pay that premium for 25 years, you will have paid $125,000 to the insurance company. If you instead invested the same amount each year at a 4% after-tax rate of return, you would have accumulated $216,559 after 25 years.

Now, the insurance company invests the money you pay in premiums. It does not have a magical way to earn a 20% rate of return each year. So, chances are your life insurance policy’s death benefit would be similar to the amount of money you could have accumulated on your own—maybe $200,000 to $225,000, as in the example above. It will not be $1,000,000 or some extraordinary amount.

So, if you have the extra cash or cash flow necessary to pay the premiums for the rest of your life, you could always save and invest that money on your own instead. You may end up in the same position—or maybe a better position if you have a moderate or high risk tolerance and if your investment fees are low.

When do you need life insurance?

By no means am I saying to ignore life insurance and invest on your own in all cases. If you are working and have dependents, you should have life insurance as a risk-mitigation strategy. If you have a corporation and lots of money you’re unlikely to spend during your own life, life insurance could be used as a tax-reduction strategy to get the corporate value of your corporation to your beneficiaries. But buying a life insurance policy to pay tax might not always be the best approach.

One exception could be if you were young, working and saving money, and owned a business with a large deferred-tax liability. If your family would be forced to sell the business at a fire-sale price to pay the tax, you might want life insurance. But, if you are approaching retirement and thinking about buying life insurance to pay the tax on your RRSP or rental property, I suggest to think twice.

Discuss the options with your beneficiaries

One final point, Nazim, is that parents may assume their kids want to keep a cottage or rental property or even their home after they die. In reality, they may decide to sell and pay down debt, contribute to their RRSP and TFSA accounts, or do something they want with the money now that it is theirs. An open dialogue with your kids may influence your own planning for the future. What you think they want may be different from what they actually want.

Jason Heath is a fee-only, advice-only Certified Financial Planner (CFP) at Objective Financial Partners Inc. in Toronto. He does not sell any financial products whatsoever.