Lexicon posted:

You've missed the point entirely - which is perfectly ok, because that's why this thread exists

An RRSP trades taxation today for taxation in future. A contribution generates a tax saving now... But the government gets its cut when future withdrawals happen.

This is entirely unrelated to the return generated by the holdings in these accounts.

A TFSA and all its earnings belong fully to the owner, now and in future. No downstream tax on withdrawal or earnings.

Kal Torak posted:

This is not true. You are required to advise CRA of your marital status change by the end of the month following the month of the status change.
http://www.cra-arc.gc.ca/bnfts/mrtl/menu-eng.html#when

Kashwashwa posted:

Yeah, I did a bit more reading after my post and realized the error in thinking.

Now that I look at it, would it make sense to try to get rid of my RRSP all-together, and migrate it into my TFSA? Basically come retirement time for me, I think the RRSP will actually be hurting me by 'clawing-back' into my GIS.

Apparently I would be taxed 10% on a 5,000 withdrawal (still leaving the $4,500 to be taxed of course), but I could chip away at the RRSP I have.

Saltin posted:

From a practical point it is only strictly necessary if you are receiving some sort of benefit from the government that would be reduced by you getting married. It's a short list of things. Even if you forgot, you'd just get a bill for the difference to recover the overpayments (which would suck, admittedly).

If you are a young dude/lady who just got married, is making an income and have no special payments coming to you from any government body, it is fine to just check the box on your next tax return. That is exactly what I did, worked out fine. Thanks for pointing it out though - it's obviously the "by the book" thing to do.

slidebite posted:

So I checked with my RBCDS adviser about buying the ETFs in my non-reg account. Needless to say, I'm not very impressed. I though it was something like $50 transaction to buy, boy was I wrong. It's like 2%.

gently caress. That.

Non-registered account with discount broker, here I come.

slidebite posted:

I am leaning against the A+ proposal, however I am quite interested in doing a purchase of one or two ETFs in our non-reg account.

Can you advise what the transaction fees are per purchase? Appreciate your time.

Thanks

RBCDS dude posted:

The Ishares (and companies that provide the direct etf like them) trade just like stocks...so in a regular transaction account outside of the fee based option you would pay just as if you bought a stock.. the cost depends on the amount purchased but you are looking at about $125 min for up to about a $5000 purchase.... Mutual funds etf through a fund company are just like mutual funds...Low load or front end load...low load costs you nothing up front but you have to stay in the fund usually for a 3 year period or face a penalty. The other option is to buy them on a front end load where you pay 1% of the total upfront and then you can move the money from the fund company anytime you want without penalty.

slidebite posted:

Thinking of a vanguard etf. Maybe $XX or so. Idea of the fees for something like that?

RBCDS posted:

Morning slidebite

It trades like a stock...the higher the purchase the less the percentage cost...you would be looking at 1.65% or approx $xx to buy $xx worth of the vanguard ( or any other stock in a non managed account )

slidebite posted:

Basically $xx just to do a buy? That's ridiculous. Can't do it, Sorry.

RBCDS posted:

Yes that doesn't surprise me... its costly to do a purchase like that in a transaction based account...that's why I use the managed accounts for most stock purchases. An advisor managed account would cost you 2% per year and you can trade approx 20-30 times /year with no other cost. You can also write off the cost.

I'm not a fan of trading in a transaction based account for those cost reasons but if you want to stay with a transaction account that's what the cost would be. Mutual funds are much more popular in the transaction based accounts again for those reasons. Keep in mind I don't set the costs...Dominion Securities does. I just try to take advantage of the types of accounts that are offered to your best advantage...and you can see that the managed account (advisor... if you want control of what is being purchased is what I think would be a better option). You would need xxx min to get into the advisor account...we discussed this account when we were talking about the A+ account option. You could then purchase the vanguard and anything else you would like with no cost other than the 2%per year fee.

slidebite posted:

thanks for the quick reply. Hope you had a good weekend.

Then it's in effect $xxx fee on $xxx. That doesn't sound much more appealing since I rarely trade. The more I've been looking into it I'm just not seeing the overall value in actively managed accounts. Paying people to try and beat the market when they have little (or in reality nothing) to lose in it doesn't float my boat. All the upside for them with basically none of the downside.

Unfortunately, I might have to go with a discount brokerage for my purchases outside the registered accounts and TFSA. I have no problem paying a premium, even a significant one, to have all of our accounts with you under 1 roof with you... but that price per trade is beyond premium, it's ridiculous for what amounts to cashing a cheque and pressing a few buttons on a keyboard.

Lexicon posted:

Wow. That's nuts.

So what exactly is RBC Dominion Securities? A managed analogue to RBC Direct Investing?

cowofwar posted:

RBC Dominion Securities is the investment bank of RBC. Just like RBC, they are penny pinching and suck unless you're high wealth.

I ditched them for MD Financial a long time ago.

slidebite posted:

slidebite posted:

I didn't even know they had a direct investing division

But yes, they are a managed investment division of RBC.

That said, I might just go to their direct investing side for this acct. $9.95 flat is reasonable enough, and it might make it simpler.

Other than this whole exorbitant fee fiasco, I've been fairly happy with them. What is MD financial?

Lexicon posted:

As I've long claimed, the financial services industry is largely predicated on consumer ignorance.

slidebite posted:

True enough. Of course I'm aware of discount brokerages, just didn't know (or remember) RBC had one. Makes sense they would though since other competing institutions do.

So, assuming I'm OK with self directing and OK with $10/trade, is there any real difference between the discount houses for someone that will only do a handful of trades a year?

I did mention a few pages ago that Questrade was pretty incompetent in my experience so I don't want to go back... I know TD-W has been mentioned here too.

slidebite posted:

True enough. Of course I'm aware of discount brokerages, just didn't know (or remember) RBC had one. Makes sense they would though since other competing institutions do.

So, assuming I'm OK with self directing and OK with $10/trade, is there any real difference between the discount houses for someone that will only do a handful of trades a year?

I did mention a few pages ago that Questrade was pretty incompetent in my experience so I don't want to go back... I know TD-W has been mentioned here too.

Tony Montana posted:

There is no Australian investing thread, is there? I don't have the search function. There are Australian forums and I'm starting to poke around.. but I'm a long time member of the SA community and I like how we discuss stuff.

Lexicon posted:

Not that I'm aware of, fellow colonial. Why not start one?

Tony Montana posted:

But, if it's then a supply/demand issue, why would you buy when there is restricted supply? Surely supply will increase with time, because the market demands it and that would result in prices coming down, even if the bubble never bursts

tuyop posted:

It looks like you guys have lower MERs than us so that's cool!

FrozenVent posted:

Real estate supply isn't that elastic. Eventually, and especially if your premise that desireable city space is limited, you just run out of room.

Or you build skyscrappers, but those have a pretty long lead times, especially if you're building in an existing city.

tuyop posted:

I did some quick googling using similar terms that I used before I decided on Questrade. It looks like canstar.com.au is your go-to guide for picking a discount brokerage. But I'm not Australian so they may be some kind of laughably evil company/organization or something.

And here's an article that looks like a more well-spoken Canadian Couch Potato for Australians. It looks like you guys have lower MERs than us so that's cool!

tuyop posted:

Oh, and your tax-sheltered options seem limited to Superannuation and some kind of weird home buyer's savings tax rebate thing. No TFSA for you guys, sorry!

Tony Montana posted:

Now this is the part I'm getting up to in my research. I was trying to find the 401k equivalent, which would be our superannuation, but how it exactly works and if I can then buy equities with it.. what the liquidity of the super account is.. how it's sheltered from tax.. are all questions I still have. You have a magical bank account that although you have a heavy restriction on how much you can deposit into it, once it's there it's totally tax free! Holy balls, Batman! You can then buy equities, if these equities perform the returns go back into your TFSA? Does that get counted in your contribution limit?

Anyways, there must be something smart that Australian investors do with their funds rather than having it in cash. Still working out what that is..

reflex posted:

Here's a general TFSA question: let's say I've maxxed it out and thrown $25,500 in there. I have a good year and end with a 5% return so my TFSA is now at $26,775, but then something happens and I have to withdraw it all. Once January 1 rolls around, is my contribution limit $25,500 + $5,500 or $26,775 + $5,500?

FrozenVent posted:

You said yourself that desirable land -that is, close to the cities on the coast- is limited. There's your absolute limit.

As for building, it depends on the actual market and prices. If the banks tighten the screws, there's that much less building happening. Alternatively, if all that's being built is McMansions, because that's where the profit margins are, other segments of the market (say multi-family dwellings and low cost apartments) get neglected.

Lead time on a house is about what, a year? So it's not like underwear where you can just order another truckload from Indonesia or whatever; by the time those houses come on the market it might already have crashed.

tuyop posted:

Yeah, the TFSA is pretty incredible. Its only problem is that it's just not that much money. 5500/year doesn't go very far. But you have the way it works kind of right. The only thing that counts towards your contribution limit is your principal, all investment returns are tax-free and yours.

Lexicon posted:

The latter. Your withdrawal amount in year N gets added to your contribution limit for year N + 1.

Tony Montana posted:

Ah, you have to be at least 18 years old to have one, I just looked up. I was thinking, as if you don't all open them for your children and pump in the 5 and a half k a year, every year.. so once they can take over they're already playing with a decent portfolio? So from 18 to 48 if you do it every year that's .. 165 grand. No it's not that much money and you can see how the investment returns need to come back into the account otherwise you're not going to have enough to retire on.

mik posted:

I want to move some of my TFSA cash (it's literally in cash) out of TD into a bespoke broker I have a TFSA account with - the broker gave me some forms to give to TD to handle the transfer. But why wouldn't I just move cash out of my TD TFSA account into my TD Chequing account, and then since my chequing account is attached to my broker's account, just transfer it immediately through there. Would I technically have to wait until 2014 to move the money into the new TFSA if I withdraw in 2013?

mik posted:

Would I technically have to wait until 2014 to move the money into the new TFSA if I withdraw in 2013?

Saltin posted:

Having said that, the statistics about how TFSAs are actually used in Canada are dismal. Half of the people that have opened a TFSA have no money in it, and of the other half, 80% of them use them quite literally as a savings account, earning 1% or less in interest.

DariusLikewise posted:

Thanks for the advice earlier everyone. I've decided to opt out of my works group RSP, dump only as much as they will match into and outside RSP and buy into the EOP with that and then put the rest in a TFSA. If this is my first time going in on a TFSA, am I allowed to contribute the total from all years I've been eligible for a TFSA or does just the previous year rollover into this year?

Saltin posted:

Having said that, the statistics about how TFSAs are actually used in Canada are dismal. Half of the people that have opened a TFSA have no money in it, and of the other half, 80% of them use them quite literally as a savings account, earning 1% or less in interest.