Funerals & Taxes: It Pays to Prepay

My wife died recently. It was sudden. Neither she nor I had formalized our funeral wishes, which didn’t help our family. With loving support from many, including the caring professionals at Heritage Funeral Centre, we pulled off an amazing celebration of her life.

That’s the good news. The bad news is it stressed my family emotionally more than necessary. “Should we do this? Would she really want that?” If she and I had preplanned with Heritage it would have been easier for everyone. Which got me thinking: my family deserves to deal with ‘my time’ as stress-free as possible. So I did the simple pre-arrangement plan with Heritage and now at least I feel less stressed.

And doing it before the HST comes in July 1, 2010, saved me an extra 8 per cent in tax. On a five thousand dollar funeral that’s $400 less in tax!

Mike is the author of this testimonial, a gentleman we at Heritage had the honor to serve when his wife passed away in 2009. So strongly does he now believe in preplanning, he wants to share his experience with anyone who will listen. Listen to the interview.

Mike’s experience, while unique and very personal to him, is not really unique at all. It is a story we have come across again and again. The emotional stress of making funeral arrangements for a loved one at the time of death often leads family members to return to the funeral home to pre-arrange for themselves. They want peace of mind. They want to ensure the emotional and financial burden is spared when it is ‘their time’. They want to personalize it to ‘do it my way’.

At Heritage Funeral Centre, our plan is simple: be the best value funeral home in all of Toronto with fair prices, exceptional staff and excellent facility, and to be an active supporter of our community. These are our four pillars.

We adhere to the following principles and values each and every day:

#1 – We care for the departed with utmost care, dignity and respect.

#2 – Our only priority is to exceed each family’s expectation.

#3 – All families we are privileged to serve receive outstanding service at a fair price.

#4 – Our funeral directors are compassionate professionals who earn the trust of families they care for – they are not paid any commission or pressured by sales quota.

#5 – Only Heritage professionals arrange and direct our funerals.

If Heritage’s principles and values resonate with you and are what you are looking for in a funeral home, then please take a moment and click through to our website at www.heritagefuneralcentre.ca to see pictures of our excellent facility and learn more.

When you are on our site, you can read many more amazing testimonials from the families we have served. These heartfelt testimonials tell us families really, really appreciate what we do for them. Here are just a few: “Words seem so inadequate to express the positive and sensitive service offered by your staff”; “… a completely positive experience”; and “…we didn’t just get what we asked for – we got everything we needed on top of it”. You’ll see why our business is growing each year – by word of mouth.

We are conveniently located in mid-town Toronto with easy TTC and car access. With our central location close to the Don Valley Parkway, we readily serve families from throughout the Greater Toronto Area. We have lots of excellent parking and there are no steps anywhere! We work very hard to earn every family’s trust and respect and are proud to continue our legacy for four generations, as a family-owned funeral home.

Please call us at 416-423-1000 with any questions you might have or to make an appointment to come in and visit us.