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Globe personal finance columnist Rob Carrick writes today in his column Budget is a friend to all with families: "The federal Conservatives must have been channelling Walt Disney when they wrote this budget.
"Canadian taxpayers have never seen anything as slickly packaged and family friendly in the extreme. There are no dramatics here, just an exercise in pleasing the crowd with some calculated plot twists.
"Have any kids? You'll save up to $310 apiece starting this year thanks to the new child-tax credit. Have a registered education savings plan set up to help pay for a child's college or university tuition? You're now in line to receive an extra $100 a year in grant money from Ottawa, and there are no more annual contribution limits. Families with a stay-at-home parent get a small tax benefit of their own, while parents of disabled children get their own version of the RESP."
So what else does the new federal budget mean to you and to your family?
Globe personal finance columnist Rob Carrick
Related Articles
Interactives
Internet Links
- Video: Flaherty's announces the budget
- The Federal Budget document
- Budget 2007: Globe stories, photos, interactives, discussions and more
Are there any other tax breaks you can take advantage of? Are there changes that could hurt you?
Mr. Carrick will be online today at 1 p.m. EDT to answer your questions and to offer his analysis.
Join the Conversation at that time or submit a question or comment in advance. Your questions and Mr. Carrick's answers will appear at the bottom of this page when the discussion begins.
Mr. Carrick has been writing about personal finance, business and economics for more than 15 years. He joined The Globe and Mail in late 1996 as an investment reporter and has been personal finance columnist since November 1998.
After starting his career at The Canadian Press in Toronto covering general news and business, Rob moved to CP's Ottawa bureau, where he served as senior economics writer and covered the Department of Finance.
He holds a Bachelor of Arts in political science from York University, an Honours Bachelor of Journalism from Carleton and is a graduate of the Canadian Securities Course. Rob is the author of two investing books, E-Investing: How to Choose and Use a Discount Broker and The Online Investor's Companion: 50 Essential Financial Web Sites. He is at work on a third book that will appear early in 2007 on getting the best value for your dollar on financial products and advice.
Editor's Note: The same rules will apply to this live discussion as normally apply to the "reader comment" feature. globeandmail.com editors will read and approve each comment/question. Not all comments/questions can be answered in the time available. Comments/questions will be checked for content only. Spelling and grammar errors will not be corrected. Comments/questions that include personal attacks, false or unsubstantiated allegations, vulgar language or libelous statements will be rejected. Preference will be given to those who ask questions under their full name, rather than pseudonyms.
Brodie Fenlon, Globeandmail.com: We are very pleased to welcome Globe personal finance columnist Rob Carrick to this discussion. Thanks for joining us today Rob. Top of mind for many of our readers is pension splitting by seniors. We've had several questions on the subject, which we'll lead today's discussion with:
Jim Sandles from Canada: Hey Rob. Do the new pension splitting provisions of the budget allow for splitting of RRSP income as well? If the answer to the question is yes, will spousal RSPs continue to be relevant?
Rob Carrick: Jim, the short answer to your question is yes. Pension income splitting covers not only company pension plans (both defined benefit and defined contribution), but also RRSPs and RRIFs as well LIFs and guaranteed income annuities. Pension income splitting, for those who don't know, allows a higher-income retiree to shift some of his or her income to a lower-income spouse so that both have equal incomes. In so doing, the couple's total income tax bill would be reduced. You'd think that with pension income splitting, spousal RRSPs would be redundant. They're not, however. The reason is that couples cannot use income splitting related to money held in RRSPs, RRIFs and some other vehicles until they turn 65 (there's no age restriction on the use of income splitting on pension income). So if you and your spouse plan to retire before 65 and RRSPs will be a big part of your income, there's still an argument for the spousal RRSP.
