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DigitalTorqueWrench

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New Cash-Flow reports
New Cash-Flow reports
I like the new CASH-FLOW Summary.  This is helpful.  Thank you.
 
There is, however, one thing that I think could be improved in the CASH-FLOW Summary and in some of the other charts & tables. It has to do with the way the MoneyReady App treats CPP contributions.  I am attempting to provide honest feedback; I am not suggesting that anybody or everybody has to agree with me!
 
From the documentation:
‘TAXES’ includes CPP/QPP and EI deductions
I am guilty of reading the documentation too fast which caused me to initially miss that statement.  I wish I had paid more attention to this detail because I spent several hours trying to figure out why the MoneyReady App was showing slightly bloated tax values in situations that involved employment income.
 
I think that grouping TAXES, CPP, and EI together and calling them "TAXES" is too much of an oversimplification.
Treating EI contributions as taxes is a bit of a stretch, but there is probably not too much harm in it.
However, I personally do not view CPP contributions as being a tax.  Unfortunately (for me), I know that not everybody out there on the Internet shares my view.
 
I would have preferred it if the Sankey diagrams provided four flows immediately to the right of the vertical centerline into:
  ⇒ TAXES
  ⇒ TO ACCOUNTS (this could potentially be renamed to simply DEPOSITS for consistency with the CASH-FLOW summary).
  ⇒ SPENDING
  ⇒ PENSION CONTRIBUTIONS.
The PENSION CONTRIBUTIONS flow should then be split into two outflows on the far right side of the diagram:
    ⇒ CPP CONTRIBUTIONS
    ⇒ OTHER PENSION CONTRIBUTIONS (or something to that effect)
 
The TAXES bar chart should not include CPP contributions.  CPP could be moved to a new bar chart labelled PENSION CONTRIBUTIONS.
Or, if the TAXES bar chart must continue to include CPP contributions, could the chart be relabeled and could CPP pensions be rendered in a different colour?
 
So now, back to the new CASH-FLOW report. It has two columns named TAXES and SPENDING.  I do not think it is right that the CPP pension contributions get included in the first column but other pension contributions get included in the second column.
I would have preferred to see three columns:
   • TAXES
   • SPENDING
   • PENSION CONT.
I recognize that not everybody has a wide monitor so some people might not like the table becoming wider than it already is.  Also, I don't have loans or mortgages so I cannot comment on how or where such things are supposed to appear.
The existence of separate columns labeled SPENDING and TOTAL SPENDING is confusing.  Based on their names, one would expect the two columns to hold identical values. Therefore the TOTAL SPENDING column could be dropped entirely or renamed to something more meaningful such as TOTAL OUTFLOWS.  For me, the word spending infers the use of money to buy goods or services.  Spending is what I do with my spending money.  I don't use that word when referring to the payment of income tax and/or pension contributions.
attribution of dividends earned from joint accounts

As far as I can tell, this new feature is working well.  Thank you for the new code!

The only thing that surprised me when looking at the TIME MACHINE output was that in some years the two "his and hers" joint accounts receive identical inflows.  I assume that this has something to do with optimizations after paying joint expenses; if this is the case it is probably working as intended and it is fine by me.

attribution of dividends earned from joint accounts

I'll add a bit more to this topic for others that might be reading...
It would be possible both in the real world and in this application to use a single joint account instead of two.
I don't do this in the real world because I feel it complicates the tax filing process.

With separate his and hers non-registered joint investments accounts we can have the best of two worlds:
 - no probate fees
 - simple tax filing while being compliant with the CRA attribution rules

On the 1st joint account I have my name listed before my wife's name. The T5 and T5008 stemements for this account get forwarded to the CRA with my SIN number only.
On the 2nd joint account I have my wife's name listed first. The T5 and T5008 statements for this account get forwarded to the CRA with my wife's SIN number only.
We use the CRA's autofill service to complete our tax forms; we don't have to fiddle or adjust any of the numbers after they are imported into the tax software.

My parents had a similar arrangement. Tax filing was easy and the CRA never felt the need to do an audit.
When my father passed away, my mother did not require a lawyer and she did not need to pay any probate fees; the brokerage firm simply looked at the will and then collapsed both accounts into a single individual account with my mother's name on it.

I would recommend his and hers non-registered joint investment accounts for all married couples... unless one of you has received a large inheritance and you don't like your spouse.

attribution of dividends earned from joint accounts

Now, after your code changes, I repeated the tests.

TEST #1
Account owner set to "joint" for both accounts.
 "Percentage of account my_name contributed to" to 100 percent on the 1st account
 and
 "Percentage of account my_name contributed to" to 0 percent on the 2nd account.
TIME MACHINE now shows a proper split of taxable dividends between myself and my wife for the years 2024 and 2025.  This is an improvment.  Thank you!  I did not check all the other years but I assume they are all okay now.

attribution of dividends earned from joint accounts

In the real world my wife and I maintain two non-registered joint investment accounts. All funds in the 1st account are attributable to me.  All funds in the 2nd account are attributable to my wife.
I pay the dividend and capital gain taxes for the 1st account.  She pays the dividend and capital gain taxes for the 2nd account.
The sole reason for maintaining the "joint" designation on these accounts is to avoid eventual probate fees.

How do I model this in the MoneyReady App?
For the 2nd account I tried setting "Percentage of account my_name contributed to" to 0 percent, but when I do that, this field always reverts to 50 percent. I then tried 1 percent but it did not have the desired effect.
For this year (2024), the TIME MACHINE always expects me to pay all of the dividend taxes for both accounts.
For next year (2025), the TIME MACHINE shows my wife paying a small percentage of our combined dividend tax, but it is still far below what her share should be.
I tried to model the accounts as "individual" instead of "joint". That solved my issues, but it ultimately leads to unwanted probate calculations when the first spouse dies.

$2500 death benefit

I don't see the $2500 death benefits for either spouse when I run the TIME MACHINE.  When one spouse dies, the other spouse should normally be able to claim $2500.  When the remaining spouse dies, the estate should be able to claim another $2500.

This probably won't impact anybody's retirement planning because the amount of money is small and it is not tied to inflation.  Also, the money theoretically should be used to cover funeral expenses and I expect most people don't itemize those in this tool.  I am therefore not desperate to see death benefits added to the TIME MACHINE; I am only pointing out that they do not seem to be there and I found no reference to them in the eBook.  In general I am extremely impressed with the amount of detail that has gone into the TIME MACHINE!