Retirement Planning
Pension Splitting and Savings Opportunities
Pension income splitting is a tax savings strategy designed to lower a couple’s income tax bill. The intent is to provide a couple with more disposable income. When a couple files their annual income tax returns, they can jointly elect to shift up to 50% of eligible pension income from the spouse in a higher tax bracket to the spouse in a lower tax bracket. Income tax savings are created from the difference in a couple’s tax brackets multiplied by the amount of income shifted. Often the splitting of pension income enables the lower-income spouse to claim the Pension Income Tax Credit.
How do you qualify
To qualify for pension income splitting, a couple is defined as two individuals who are married or in a common-law relationship. Relationship breakdowns will prevent the couple from using this strategy. This assumes the members are living separate and apart from each other at the end of the year period of 90 days or more. Couples living apart at the end of the year because of medical, business or educational reasons would not be disqualified. The couple must be residents of Canada on December 31st.
The definition of elidible pension income
Those Canadians, age 65 or older by December 31st of the year, eligible pension income consists of:
- Payments from a Registered Pension Plan (RPP), Registered Retirement Income Fund(RRIF), Life Income Fund (LIF), and/or Locked-in Retirement Income Fund (LRIF)
- Lifetime Annuities from registered funds
- Interest portion of non registered annuities and prescribed annuities
GIC Interest Income issued by a Canadian life insurance company for those over age 65 qualifies for the Pension Income Tax Credit. This is not the case with GIC’s issued by a bank, trust company or credit union. Pension Income splitting is a great tax planning opportunity for Canadians. The ability to lower couples combined income tax liability thus resulting in more after-tax disposable income. For more information on this and other tax and estate planning information make a plan to meet with your financial advisor.