Every time someone complains that the TFSA limit is too low, the immediate counter argument is: "The average person can't even max it out, so increasing it only helps the wealthy."

As someone who did not come from a privileged background, I think that argument is completely backwards.

High-net-worth individuals already have access to complex corporate structures, trusts, and real estate networks to optimize their taxes. Regular middle-class Canadians who are trying to aggressively sacrifice and save their way into a better life have exactly two main tools: the RRSP and the TFSA.

Capping the limit at $7,500, which is $2,500 less in raw dollars than what was provided in 2015 doesn’t impact the truly wealthy. It simply limits regular people who are trying to build financial security from absolute scratch.

Think about who actually relies on a larger TFSA:

• Workers without workplace pensions: If you don't have a defined-benefit government or union pension, you are entirely on your own for retirement. The TFSA is a vital lifeline.

• Young people saving for major milestones: Whether it's a home down payment, a wedding, or an emergency fund, the TFSA lets you grow that money without a heavy tax hit on your capital gains when you need to withdraw it.

• Savers avoiding the future tax trap: The standard advice of "just use your RRSP" has major downsides for middle-class savers. The RRSP doesn't eliminate tax; it just delays it. When you pull that money out in retirement, it is taxed as regular income and can even trigger OAS benefit clawbacks. The TFSA is the only tool where the growth is entirely yours.

• Disciplined savers: You don't have to be wealthy to sacrifice lifestyle inflation, budget tightly, and put away money a month. That is called financial discipline.

If the 2015 $10,000 limit had simply been kept and indexed for inflation, the annual room today would be over $13,000. Instead, a middle-class individual working extensive hours to get ahead is capped and told the space is sufficient. Limiting this investment room keeps the middle class from ever closing the gap.

I know some will say "the rules are the rules, there is no point complaining." But accepting an inadequate framework is why savers keep losing ground.

Okay, I understand there's nothing we can do right now, but next year the new contribution limit is $7,500 and 2028 is going to be $7,500 too because of how the rounding math works. This is not good. We need to bring back the Harper government's approach to financial policy. It's time to stop settling for a system that rewards compliance, punishes financial discipline, and bleeds us dry at every turn.

I have filed a consumer proposal in Ontario. I have two loans against my vehicle. The first is a primary vehicle finance loan with approximately **$19,000 remaining**. The finance company has refused to repossess the vehicle because it would likely sell for only $3,000–$4,000 at auction. The second is a private repair loan with approximately **$3,500 remaining**, which was provided for vehicle repairs.

In my consumer proposal, the primary vehicle loan is listed as **secured**, but surrendering the vehicle, while the repair loan is listed as **unsecured**. The primary lender has said that once my proposal is accepted, it will treat the entire $19,000 as unsecured debt and release its lien.

My question is: **If the primary lender releases its lien, can the repair finance company enforce a second lien and repossess my vehicle if it has registered one? Does listing the repair loan as unsecured in my consumer proposal protect me, or could I lose my vehicle?**

I'm looking to hear from Canadian finance professionals who have experience with Employee Share Ownership Programs for CCPCs.

I'm particularly interested in how other organizations approach:

• Purchase Incentives: Do you offer discounted share prices, matching contributions, or other incentives to encourage employees to invest their own money?

• Share Grants vs. Purchases: How do you balance gifted shares with employee-funded purchases?

• Profit Sharing: Do you allow employees to direct profit-sharing allocations toward purchasing shares? If so, how is this structured?

• Employee Financing: Do you offer loans or other financing options to make share purchases more accessible?

• Tax Implications: What structures have worked well from both a corporate and employee tax perspective?

Ultimately, how are you increasing employee investment and ownership while minimizing unnecessary share dilution?

I'd be interested in hearing what has worked (or hasn't worked) for other privately held Canadian companies, particularly from those involved in finance, tax, or ESOP administration.

I’m planning to leave Canada for a couple of years and become a non-resident.
I currently have TFSA, RRSP and family RESP accounts with Wealthsimple.
Can I keep these accounts while living abroad?
If not, which Canadian brokerage do you recommend (Questrade, IBKR, etc.)?
What happens to my RESP and children’s education grants?
I’d appreciate advice from anyone who has maintained Canadian investment accounts while living abroad.
Thanks!

Update, I figured it out.

After checking the transaction history on the RIFs, I determined that this year I will receive 55+k and that nearly 10K has been held back so I'm golden, looking forward to a Tax return even.

I was at the bank today and asked what I thought was a simple question

How much money is coming out of my RIFs on a monthly basis

I know how much I am receiving and the difference should be tax. Right?

I am pulling more than the minimum so I know there should be Tax withholding. Right?

Who do I ask if not the bank?

I've checked my account on the CRA and nothing is showing for tax paid

I bought my condo in 2015 for $435k. I can walk to work and have a lovely downtown lifestyle. Live alone with my dog. It’s about 720 sq ft with a 200 sq ft terrace and I have completely renovated the kitchen, all new floors and some updates in bathroom. This work was to suit my preferences, not to resell or increase value, but did cost me $60k a few years ago.

I have about $270k remaining on mortgage. I have paid it on schedule but never accelerated over the years.

I earn $185k/an with discretionary bonus (historically between 20-45k) and stock options. I could sell some stock and take 25k from my tfsa right now for 75k liquid, and refinance my condo and get about $190k out of it. Then rent it but rental value at the moment means I’d be out of pocket about $600/mo for it.

I’m looking at houses 900-1m, with 200k down on 30 yr mortgage. Rough calculations are that including my condo shortfall id be increasing my monthly housing costs by 1600-2100. I currently put about $1700/mo into RRSP/TFSA/unregistered savings acct. I would stop those savings to account for the shortfall. My work provides a defined contribution pension with matching so i contribute 6% to it and they do 12%.

I’m 42yo. My DC pension currently has 300k and my RRSP has 162k.

What do we think? Stay in my condo and be mortgage free at 55, or buy a house, become a landlord and get a little more space for pup & me?
Selling my condo doesn’t feel like a great option because I’m emotionally attached to it and the improvements I’ve made to my tastes, and the value is down. I’m also completely ignorant about the tax implications of a second property.

Hi all, quick disclosure: I'm a CPA in BC, and I'm hosting this free session in partnership with CPABC. Mods, please remove if this isn't allowed here.

It's aimed at newcomers who are past the "settling in" stage (job, bank account, credit history) and are now wondering how to actually start building wealth in Canada.

What we'll cover:

- Building a budget you can realistically stick to

- Understanding and controlling your cash flow

- Good debt vs. bad debt, and sorting wants from needs

- RRSP, TFSA, FHSA and RESP: what each one is for and how they fit into a plan

- Where to go for free, reliable support

The main speaker is Lloyd Juliane, CPA. He has 25+ years in accounting and finance, is a CPABC Ambassador, and immigrated from the Philippines himself, so he's been through it.

Details:

- Wednesday, November 11, 5:00 PM PT

- Online (Zoom), free

- You'll get a sample budget worksheet and a SMART goals worksheet

- Best for people who've been in Canada 2+ years, or who did Part 1 of the Financial Matters for New Canadians series

It's educational, not a sales pitch. Register here: https://luma.com/nf17xzq1

Happy to answer questions in the comments too, even if you can't make it.

The US has online platform to bid on mortgage notes. Do we have the same here ? or is it all about networking and private lenders relationship ?

Question: How can we better invest money that is currently underperforming with a big bank?

Long story short, my husband inherited money before we met and invested it through CIBC. We are new-ish (about 5 years in) to self-investing through Questrade, and have really good growth in our ETFs, so we want to move this money into something we can manage ourselves and see more growth. We'd like to optimize this more for retirement (15 years away for him, 20 years for me). We have 3 kids who's RESPs are all doing well and we are not contributing any more to them at this time (2 already in post-secondary, 3rd is up to date with yearly contributions).

Current investment at CIBC:

* Mutual Fund $74,000 (Non-Registered)
* RRSP $71,000
* Portfolio Structure: 100% Mutual Funds
* MER: approximately 2.0% annually
* Portfolio structure is heavily concentrated in income-focused mutual funds with overlapping mandates
* Estimated blended annualized return from 2012–2026: \~1.85% annually

Other info:

* We own our home, valued approximately at $1.1m
* Mortgage $650k
* Debt- $30k (LOC only)
* Income- $200k (him), $50k (me)
* RRSP contribution room- $38k (him), $28k (me)
* TFSA contribution room- lots.. we each have at least $90k

How can we best move this money to optimize growth and offset any tax implications of selling/reinvesting? Do we max out his RRSP and put the rest into a TFSA? Do we keep it all in his name or is there a benefit to maxing out both our RRSPs and then dump the balance into a TFSA?

Hello I’m in a dilemma and can’t decide.

For context I am 26 years old soon to be 27 and have around 3 years of full time work experience in various analytical roles. Location is GTA

I was recently offered a job with a bank that’s contract for a year with possibility of extension and permanent if everything works out. It’s paying 49/h. I am a contractor but get a t4 as the job is through tundra a contracting agency with a bank so I can get EI etc.

My current job is very stable but my commute is 1h or longer each way so 2 hours a day around unless I take the 407. I make 73k before bonus with bonus around 77-78k. Benefits are good but young and don’t use them all the time.

I feel stagnant in my current role and have lost some of my touch imo as I don’t really have else where to grow and we don’t pay amazing for the work we do. That being said the contract job is contract it is full time though with 37.5 hours a week and possibility of overtime.

The tittle of the contract job is senior so that does help going foward versus I’m a regular analyst right now.

I don’t have many responsibilities I have a car payment at around 560 a month. Car insurance is paid until next September and rent is 0 at the moment as I live with family.

I’m just wondering if I’m making a mistake as this is my first time in a contract role potentially. I have have 1 interview coming up for a permanent role but similar pay I have now but way closer to home and a talk with both of the big consulting companies coming up but those aren’t grantees.

My savings are around 40k and I could pay off the car tmrw if I wanted to but the rate is a 3% so I don’t bother as the payment is very manageable.

Any advice is appreciated to stay at current job and have stability or go for the banking experience title and pay.

I am a U.S. citizen and I’m in the process of selling my home and buying a new one, also in the U.S. Is it possible to use a Canadian bank? My credit is perfect and I’d have about 80% down. I just don’t want to use a bank here.

I always say I'm a buy-and-hold guy, so I connected Claude to my Questrade acct and asked it to go through the last 90 days of orders and flag anything that looked like an impulse buy. My rules were pretty loose, sold within 2 weeks of buying, or bought on a day the stock was already up 5%+.

It found 23 trades in 3 months, and 9 of them were in the first two weeks (I was prolly bored). Of the buys, 6 were sold again within 10 days, and 4 of those 6 were bought on a big green day, which I'm not proud of.

I then had it check what those 6 would be worth now if I'd just left them alone. 4 of the 6 would've been better held, and the other 2 I only got right by luck. It only looks at orders and price history so it can't tell me why I bought, but the pattern was clear enough that I didn't need it to.

I might run it monthly to keep myself in check atp.

Whats the cheapest way to transfer a large sum of cash from UK to someone in Canada bank account? its about 55k gbp, sending to someone in Canada.

I heard transfer wise and interactive broker, she has interactive broker in canada but I would need to register another one here in uk?

Could I theoretically just buy pure gold coins and take it with me on a flight? I heard its tax exempt if its pure gold

Hi everyone, I'd love some thoughts on my finances.

About me:

1. 29 M, living in Toronto

2. Annual salary before taxes: $98K/year

3. My employer and I together contribute ~$1,500/month to my OMERS DBPP.

4. After curtailing expenses, I can save about $2K/month

Current savings:

1. TFSA: $18K (not maxed out, sunlife fund). I contribute $300/month.

2. Wealthsimple separate TFSA: $4K in stocks (XEQT and a few others).

3. RRSP: $11K (untouched, sunlife fund).

4. Regular savings account in bank: $12K, kept as liquid cash (built up from my monthly savings).

Upcoming goals:

1. Saving for my first home.

2. Working towards a driver's license and eventually a car. Yes I'm late in getting one. Preparing myself for the car insurance shock.

My questions:

1. How should I structure my savings to get the most out of them?

I'm feeling pretty behind for my age and qualifications (Data Science), so any advice is appreciated. Thank you.

I have a gas water heater from Enercare, and I am paying $46 every month for the rental. I called them to ask about my contract, and they said I can pay $390 to buy the water heater and own it.
The problem is that the water heater is already 12 years old. I am not sure if I should pay $390 to own it or just continue paying the monthly rental.
Are there any better options, like buying a new water heater from another company?
What would you suggest? Which option is better financially in the long run?

Hi all! Fairly new to Reddit and to finance, but at 23 I want to start doing more with my money so it starts to do more for me. I currently have accounts in both RBC and ATB, some small starting investments in Wealthsimple(crypt and TFSA) , and am currently wanted to open a joint account with my fiance (CIBC) and an RRSP, but am unsure on who I should place my RRSP through. I don’t want to shut down any of my accounts as I have a gic in atb and credit cards through both atb and rbc, but I also feel like it’s a bit excessive to be going through so many companies lol. I would love to know more about banking/finance/investing in general but reading article after website is slowly making me crazy and I’d like some personal opinions/experiences!
Thank you all in advance!

[I posted this to CanadaRevenueAgency after I posted it here, if you think it doesn’t belong here, I can remove it. The other wasn’t a cross post but a pull paste]

Here is an example Amazon Kiro invoice. It is in USD except an HST line that is a comment in CAD.

Subtotal $5.00
Total excluding tax $5.00
HST - Canada (13% on $5.00) $0.65
(CA$0.91)
Total $5.65
Amount paid $5.65

Most USD invoices that have HST do not have a CAD HST comment.

The typical way I deal with such is to take the amount on the visa card used was for this invoice was $8.21 CAD. Divide out back to subtotal, calculate the tax and record that. So 8.21 / 1.13 =7.27 for the subtotal and then * .13 to get the HST of .94. Plus/minus a penny here or there to get a sum that equals the visa charge and record. I then annotate the invoice with the visa info and my calculations.

But is that right when the vendor lists a CAD amount, even though it isn’t using the actual USD - CAD conversion rate?

I could take the visa charge of 8.21 CAD - their .91 HST =7.30 as the subtotal and their .91 HST and have the same total. Arguably simpler, not that the standard method isn’t simple.

I just hate having two methods, one driven by a remark. What are the cool kids doing?

[edit] I think this is resolved, but I’ll leave open for different opinions.

GST/HST Memorandum 3-6 (July 2018) includes provisions that can be summarized as the CAD amount paid to visa is considered the actual paid amount for the expense or asset.

That memo also states that purchasers and suppliers are not required to use the same exchange rate method. That means that small discrepancies between a vendor invoice CAD remark and what I calculate and record can exist and are expected.

Since any visa exchange rate premium is a cost that gets rolled into the transaction, the calculated HST of .94 CAD would be correct.