RRSP Spectacular!
The deadline is looming, and Canadians still ponder whether they should put more money into their RRSP?
When is the Deadline? According to the TD Waterhouse website, the deadline is Midnight on March 2nd (2020). You get an extra banking day for contributions to count on last year’s income tax. So you still have plenty of time to ponder this.
A valuable tool for this exercise is Quicktax’s RRSP scenario tester.
If you want to “last minute” it, you can do it online. Still, I won’t be doing anything like that since my income was lower last year, I am in a lower tax bracket (for the first time in 20 years), so I will save any RRSP room for next year’s taxes (and instead take advantage of my TFSA to put any extra money in).
Haven’t you opened an RRSP yet? Maybe it’s time to think about doing that, but this might not be the best time to do it, given the crush of folks trying to make last-minute payments (but then again, I went to my bank yesterday, and it didn’t look too crazy (yet)). I would suggest a self-directed account is the best place to put things, but remember that those accounts typically have a hefty yearly charge if you don’t carry a minimum amount in them (I forget that sometimes, given my accounts are above those levels).
What should you invest in? That’s not my call. I can only say that if you aren’t sure if you have a self-directed RRSP, you can “park” money in there (deposit it) and then figure out what to invest in later. Hasty decisions now could mean unwanted consequences later, so keep that in mind.
Where is my T4?
Your employer should have sent you your T-4 by now as well. They have until March 1st to get it to you, so don’t forget that you need that to fill in your tax forms correctly. I received 1 of the 2 I should receive. However, my former employer’s info is still not received. This will hopefully show up this weekend, and then I can submit my returns and be done with this.
T2202A Receipts
I checked with my daughter about the receipts I should receive from her University for tuition payment, and I was not happy to see that they leave this all up to the student to collect. It used to be they mailed those to your home address; however, now, the burden is on my child to go to the correct website, print out a copy of the receipts and send them to me, so I can get my taxes done.
This does save the University a great deal of time and money not having to mail these out, but getting my daughter to collect this data for me will be no easy feat for me.
You’d rather pay higher tuition or have your daughter receive a lower quality education to pay for the administrative cost of distributing tax forms.
It’s a 3 minute job. I’ve been doing it for 8 years (I have an addiction to classes, apparently), and I find this far more convenient than the previous system of getting stuff mailed. If I could get my T4 online the same way I get my T2202A, I’d already have my refund in the bank.
So, the cost of mailing a bunch of forms is going to raise my tuition fees? Let’s see, the entire system of automating applications to Universities has cut out the need to use Canada post for anything much, but fees went up. Universities may cut costs with this, however it’s direct impact on Tuition fees is likely not as much as you’d guess, and your faith that my daughter will send me the forms (since I don’t have access to the system, only the students) is touching, but also very naive. The university could create a “Mail stuff to parents fee” (which would not be tax deductible) and charge $20 for that, and it wouldn’t be in the news, Tuition costs may be increasing, but punitive fee structures outside of the scope of Tuition fees far outstrip the tuition costs increases.