@calmmoneycoach: SINGLE, COUPLE OR LEGACY The account you fill matters more than the one you empty. The Quebec point is the one I'd want you to act on this week. CRA states it flatly: Quebec does not recognize the designation of successor holder for TFSAs. Under the Civil Code, a beneficiary designation on a non-insurance product has to be made in your will or your marriage contract. The same applies to RRSPs and RRIFs held at a bank or brokerage. The one exception is anything issued by an insurer, a segregated fund or a guaranteed investment option. So if you're in Quebec and you've only ever filled in the form at the bank, that form is doing nothing, and the fix is a conversation with whoever drafted your will. I need to correct myself. "The RRSP rolls to your spouse tax-free" is off slightly as stated. It's a deferral, not forgiveness, and it comes due on the second death. The chain is subsection 146(8.8) deeming receipt of fair market value immediately before death, then the offsetting deduction in 146(8.9) and the survivor's deduction under 60(l). For a RRIF it's the designated benefit rules in 146.3. It also only works if the paperwork is right. The mechanism worth knowing: name your spouse successor annuitant on a RRIF and subsection 146.3(6) never fires at all, because it only applies when the last annuitant dies. Nothing gets included, no election, no T1090. On the estate arithmetic. a $500,000 RRIF with $50,000 of other income: leave it and the tax at death is about $230,000; draw $50,000 a year for ten years and the total is about $155,000. Seventy-five thousand more to your beneficiaries. But Doug Chandler's FP Canada study adds the part that gets left out. It only works if the money lands in the TFSA. In his BC couple case, RRIF withdrawals funding annual TFSA contributions moved the estate from $260,520 to $305,006. Pulling from the RRIF into a taxable account left the estate marginally worse and raised the odds of running out. One deadline pair that trips people. The TFSA exempt contribution for a surviving spouse must be made by 31 December of the year following the year of death, and form RC240 must be filed within 30 days after that contribution is made. The 30 days is not the recontribution deadline. Getting those backwards is the classic error. Educational only, not advice. Rules differ by province. Verify before acting.

Brian | Calm Money Coach

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Region: GR

Monday 31 August 2026 12:35:52 GMT