When working with clients who are Canadian citizens living abroad, it’s important to ensure their tax situation is modeled accurately. Voyant allows you to adjust for these unique cases by creating a custom or “effective” tax system that reflects offshore residency or other non-standard tax circumstances.
In this guide, we’ll walk through how to model a bespoke tax setup in the Canadian version of Voyant.
Step 1: Enable Effective Tax Brackets
Begin by navigating to Plan Settings and selecting “Effective Tax Brackets.”
Turning on effective tax brackets allows you to override all standard Canadian tax calculations in the plan, including both federal and provincial taxes. This ensures the plan reflects your client’s unique tax situation, rather than defaulting to Canada’s combined tax system.
Step 2: Create a Custom Tax System
To build a bespoke tax system, select “Add Bracket.”
From here, you can define your own income thresholds and tax rates based on the country or region where your client is currently residing.
Once you’ve entered all the necessary brackets, click “Done” to save.
Note: Think about currency conversion when building this out. All incomes and asset values will need to be converted into Canadian dollars in the plan.
Step 3: Review the Tax Calculation in Year View
Next, head over to Year View > Taxes to confirm how the system is applying your custom rates.
Scroll down to Tax Brackets and Rates, and you’ll see the effective brackets you entered listed here. Although a province must still be selected in the plan, these provincial rates are no longer being factored into the tax calculation.
Instead, the plan is applying only the federal effective rates you defined in Step 2.
Step 4: Compare to Traditional Canadian Tax Modeling
For reference, the traditional Canadian tax view shows both federal and provincial rates combined. When effective tax brackets are enabled, you’ll notice that only your custom federal brackets are being used, a helpful distinction when modeling offshore or expatriate clients.
Final Thoughts
This approach gives advisers the flexibility to model expat clients more accurately without switching to another region’s software. By defining effective tax brackets, you can reflect real-world scenarios where standard Canadian rates no longer apply, ensuring your client’s plan remains both compliant and realistic.
Note: This can be an effective tool for modeling different unique tax situations where a client's tax exposure may not look like a typical Canadian citizens.