Tax manuals have a reputation for being able to drive the bright to agony and the dull to sleep. The challenge for authors is that, although professional readers want to see exceptions to rules and interpretations with various levels of aggressiveness, an encyclopedic level of detail is beyond the needs and probably the competence of readers who just want to “cruise” for their issues.

John R. Mott, a chartered accountant and certified financial planner in Toronto, has found a path through the thicket of rules. His Tax Guide for Investment Advisors is sparkling in clarity, brief enough to be understood and current enough to be reliable.

Brought up to date with the inclusion of 2005 federal budget measures, the guide includes changes that affect the small-business deduction limit, RRSP contribution limits, the squelching of the foreign property limit for registered plans and tax rate changes.

The book is precisely what its title says: a guide for the advisor, not a handbook for doing tax returns. In the broadest sense, the book covers tax-planning concepts; investment instruments, from stocks and options to tax shelters; treatment of investment income, investment corporations, estates and trusts, and U.S. interests; investment strategies, including short-selling and hedging and various forms of tax-deferred investments plans, including RRSPs, RESPs and deferred profit-sharing plans. An appendix on foreign accrual property income rules will help advisors with clients who want to drop money offshore.

Mott covers many tax-planning issues that confront the average taxpayer, but his focus is on high net-worth individuals and their particular problems.

He steers a middle course between definitive examination of tax rules and cursory mention of what those rules are. For example, on the so-called “departure tax” that Paul Martin, as minister of finance, created to stop the rush of financial interests out of Canada after a wealthy Canadian family sent a trust to the U.S., Mott describes the rule that requires a taxpayer who ceases to be a resident of Canada to file a tax return for the period immediately before he leaves the country. Mott covers the property that is subject to taxes, notes exclusions such as real property, and covers the problem of the deemed transaction, such as the sale of a company, that may not generate cash. The taxpayer may file a form and post security satisfactory to the minister of finance. What that security is has not been settled, and Mott does not venture into the issue.

The 2006 edition is vital as a shelf reference, readable enough to peruse with at least modest enjoyment and as definitive as a relatively brief guide can be. At $41, it’s almost a steal. IE