What's new?

The Canada Revenue Agency warns Canadians of mail scam

The Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) is warning taxpayers to beware of a recent scam where some Canadians are receiving a letter fraudulently identified as coming from the CRA and asking for personal information. The letter is not from the CRA. A PDF version of the letter is available on the CRA Web site at www.cra.gc.ca/alert.

The letter claims that there is “insufficient information” for the individual’s tax return and that in order to receive any “claims,” they will have to update their records. The letter attaches a form specifically requesting the individual’s personal information in writing, via fax or email, including information on bank accounts and passports. This letter is not from the CRA and Canadians should not provide their personal information to the sender.

All taxpayers should be vigilant when divulging any confidential information to third parties. The CRA has well established practices to protect the confidentiality of taxpayers’ information.

The CRA has notified the proper law enforcement authorities of this scam.

Notice to Quebec pension committees and sponsors of registered pension plans with members employed in Quebec (excluding sponsors of federally regulated pension plans)

In order to help you comply with the new measures proposed in Quebec with respect to phased retirement that took effect on June 20, 2008 with the adoption of Bill 68, a notice will be provided to Quebec pension plan members and beneficiaries giving a brief description of the measures related to phased retirement and information relative to associations representing plan members.

Manulife will be sending out this notice on behalf of all clients having members with an RPP for whom the province of employment is Quebec (excluding federally regulated pension plans). This will be mailed out at the same time as member statements in a separate envelope, during the first two weeks of January. The following introduction will be included on the notice.

"This is an important notice from Manulife on behalf of your pension committee or plan administrator. You will find below a brief description of the new provisions of the Supplemental Pension Plans Act that concern phased retirement and associations representing plan members and beneficiaries. Should you have any questions, please contact our Financial Service Centre at 1-800-242-1704 or visit the Régie des rentes du Québec website."

Should you have questions, please contact your Manulife Customer Service Representative or visit the Régie des rentes du Québec website.

Online reporting enhancements

As you may have already noticed, the Reports section or the sponsor VIP Room has had a makeover! Here's what's changed:

• All reports are now grouped into these four categories: Plan financial information, Member financial information, Member non-financial information and Miscellaneous reports.
• The Download reports page has been split into two sections: Reports and Statements. Reports will remain on the site for 45 days and statements issued electronically will remain for 13 months
• We've added a new Suggest a report link on the Reports tab so you can make suggestions and/or comments about reports you would like to see on the site.
• We've improved the turnaround time to provide you with the reports you have requested twice as fast.
• "You have x new reports ready for download" will now appear on the Home page when new reports are available for viewing.

We've also enhanced the Member search function by adding the Termination date.

The future doesn't have to be a mystery

Planning for retirement requires concrete solutions, not guesswork. That's why we're pleased to introduce the new Retirement Calculator designed to make sure your employees are doing everything they can to maximize their level of success in retirement planning. Using a combination of their group program information, built-in assumptions and values that they input, the Calculator can tell them what they need to do today to get closer to their goals for tomorrow.

Check it out for yourself now!

Note - We have not activated the new Calculator for clients who have opted out of the Retirement checkup™. If you are interested in adding this feature for your members, please contact your Customer Relationship Manager.

New Target Year Funds

Manulife is pleased to announce the addition of two new funds to their Target Year Fund line-up: McLean Budden Target Year 2045 Fund and Target Year 2050 Fund. These new funds may appeal to your younger employees with a longer investment time horizon. You will find the investment strategy and objective for these funds below. For more insight on this type of investment vehicle, you can also refer to our Target Year Funds flyer.

McLean Budden Target Year 2045 Fund and McLean Budden Target Year 2050 Fund

Investment objective

Designed for investors planning to retire in or around 2045 (or 2050), the objective is to provide capital growth and income through a dynamic risk-adjusted diversified portfolio of investments in cash, bonds and equities, equally weighted in Canadian and foreign markets.

Strategy and style

To reflect the evolving risk profile of the unit holders as they approach retirement, the Fund is rebalanced quarterly to a more conservative asset mix by converting a small portion of equities into fixed income investments. Bonds are actively managed using conservative strategies with a high-quality portfolio. Equity investments focus on large capitalization stocks, selected through a process driven by in-depth fundamental research, in a core portfolio of 140 to 180 holdings, without any investment style bias. The benchmark is composed of the DEX 91-day T-Bill Index (for cash), DEX Universe Bond Index (for bonds), BMO/TSX Composite CAP 10% Index (for Can. equities) and MSCI World Index (for foreign equities). The index weights vary over time, like the asset mix of the fund.

Manulife's Group Savings & Retirement plan sponsor VIP Room was selected as a finalist in the 2009 Concours des OCTAS

The Concours des OCTAS, held annually since 1987, is a unique opportunity to recognize achievement in Quebec's Information Technology industry and has become the benchmark of excellence in Quebec's IT sector. It rewards individuals, companies or organizations for their creativity, vitality and exceptional contribution to the growth of the industry. Throughout the years, the Concours des OCTAS has provided many winners of their distinguished award with outstanding visibility and recognition.

We are proud to announce that Manulife's Group Savings & Retirement plan sponsor VIP Room was selected as a finalist in the 2009 Concours des OCTAS, at a finalist's gala held in Montreal on April 8.

The sponsor VIP Room has facilitated a monetary and ecological savings of one ton of paper since its implementation. The recent nomination is a modicum of recognition and distinction for Manulife from its peers in the financial services world.

The winner will be announced on Saturday, May 23rd at the Gala des OCTAS, which will be held at the Palais des congrès de Montréal. Stay tuned for the results.

Helping you and your members stay on track

Retirement checkup™
To further integrate the retirement planning process, your members will be able to see the retirement projection they create using the Retirement Calculator reflected on their Retirement checkup the next time they receive their annual statement. For members who haven’t used the Calculator yet, they will be reminded to log onto the VIP Room and do so when they review their Checkup. For more information, see our pamphlet and a flyer available for your members.

Note: If you opted out of the Retirement checkup last year, your members do not have access to the Retirement Calculator on the VIP Room. Please contact your Manulife representative if you are considering offering these planning tools to your members in the future.

Online invoice management
To help simplify your day-to-day plan administration, you can now view and pay your group retirement program invoices (January 1, 2009 and later) online via a secure banking connection with the plan sponsor VIP Room. If you haven’t logged onto the site in a while, now is a great time to check out all the eServicing features such as contributions, pre-enrolment, member management and reports.

Note: Should you want to stop receiving paper invoices, please contact your Manulife representative to make the necessary arrangements.

We've just made paying your invoices a little easier

If you have access to the online contribution feature of the plan sponsor VIP Room, you can now pay your group retirement program invoices (January 1, 2009 and later) as part of this process. Simply load your list, select the invoices you wish to pay, enter a payment amount and your payment information will be applied for both the contribution list and the invoice payment.

Our Retirement Calculator is evolving!

Based on the results obtained from the focus groups that were held with plan members, we have improved the visual aspect of the Retirement Calculator – a state-of-the-art tool available on the award-winning* VIP Room site designed to help members Plan for life™. The changes make the tool more ergonomic and user-friendly, and we have also improved its "Print" feature so that members can now obtain the results of their retirement income projection in a PDF report that they can then save.

The Calculator's other features have not changed. Members will still be able to view their assets, including those invested in their group program, and receive practical suggestions based on their specific retirement objectives.

Visit our VIP Room demo for more details!

* Insurance and Financial Communicators Association, Winner of the 2009 Best of Show, Electronic materials category
* Benefits Canada, Winner of the 2008 Plan Member Communications Award

Note: If you opted out of the Retirement checkupTM last year, your members do not have access to the Retirement Calculator on the VIP Room. Please contact your Manulife representative if you are considering offering these planning tools to your members in the future.

Important message on the Harmonized Sales Tax (HST) and new Federal Government tax regulations

New Federal Government tax regulations require that the Harmonized Sales Tax (HST) be charged on Investment Management Fees (IMF) and certain other fees based in provinces where HST applies. If the policyholder (i.e. the employer in most cases) of your plan is based in one of these provinces, the appropriate HST on IMFs will be deducted from the unit values on your members' accounts, while HST on other fees – if applicable – will be applied when those fees are charged. If you, as plan sponsor, assume the cost of any of these fees, HST will be charged on your next invoice. With these new regulations in effect, taxes in the various provinces apply as follows:

• If the policyholder of your plan is based in BC or ON: HST will be charged as of July 1 2010 (12% for BC and 13% for ON).
• If the policyholder of your plan is based NB, NS and NL, where these regulations came into effect on May 1, 2010, HST will be charged retroactively to that date. (HST rates are 13% for NB and NL, and 13% from May 1, 2010 to June 30, 2010 for NS, then 15% as of July 1, 2010).
• If the policyholder of your plan is based in QC, the tax rates are 5% GST and 7.5% QST.
• If the policyholder of your plan is based in AB, SK, MB, PE, NT, NU or YT only GST (5%) applies.

These new regulations and other GST regulations announced during the year will have an impact on pension plans. For certain plans, they may result in increased expenses at the plan level. We recommend that you review your pension plan and consult your tax advisor.

Note: If your plan is exempt from GST/HST (e.g.: Indian Bands and certain provincial government bodies), please provide Manulife with the proper certification.