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Tax planning

The lowest tax bill is not always the best plan.

There is more than one way to be tax-smart in retirement, and the right one depends entirely on you. We model four different tax strategies against your plan and show you the trade-offs, side by side.

Watch the breakdown

The four tax strategies for retirement, explained.

4 Tax Strategies You Need To Hear Before You Retire

Who we are

Tax Smart Planning.

Tax planning and strategy is an important pillar of a complete plan, and it is where our planning engine provides most of its valuable work: modelling your real numbers for different strategies, how to draw down and what to do, and making sure your tax plan is intentional. Optimal can mean many different things to different people. Ensuring your objective meets your tax optimization is the most important part of this, and we break each of the four strategies down on the video above.

What we do here

Model four strategies on your plan

Not a rule of thumb, your actual accounts, income, and timeline, run four ways.

Show the trade-offs side by side

More to spend now, a bigger estate, or the lowest lifetime tax, you see what each choice costs.

Recommend the one that fits you

Then we help you act on it, and revisit it as the rules and your life change.

Four ways to look at tax

Four strategies. One is right for you.

Optimizing for tax now

Lowest single-year tax

Draws from your least-taxable sources first, non-registered principal and TFSA, and touches registered accounts only for what is required. It minimizes the tax you pay this year.

The trade-off: it lets your RRSP/RRIF keep compounding untouched, which can mean much larger mandatory withdrawals, and larger tax bills, later in life.

Right for you if: cash flow today matters most, or your horizon is short.
The balanced default

Best overall tax benefit

Our recommended everyday starting point. It draws down registered accounts early while you are in low brackets, but only up to the top of the lowest federal bracket, capturing most of the long-term benefit without over-melting.

The trade-off: it gives up a little lifetime-tax savings in exchange for a smoother, more moderate path that holds up well across a range of futures.

Right for you if: you want a sensible balance and no single extreme.
Average tax across your whole projection

Lowest lifetime tax

Aggressively draws registered income up to the OAS clawback edge every year, the classic "melt the RRSP while you are in low brackets, before RRIF minimums balloon at 80+." Surplus is redirected to your TFSA so it keeps compounding tax-free.

The trade-off: you deliberately pay more tax in the early years to pay far less over the whole retirement.

Right for you if: you want the smallest total tax bill across your lifetime.
Legacy

Biggest after-tax estate

Focused on what your family actually keeps. Optimized for leaving the largest amount of after-tax dollars to your heirs and beneficiaries.

Registered accounts are fully taxable at death (up to ~53.5% on the final return), while a TFSA passes tax-free, so this strategy shrinks the registered bucket during your life, converting it to TFSA capital whenever that costs less than it would at death.

The trade-off: it prioritizes what you leave behind over what you spend or save in tax while living.

Right for you if: leaving the most to your heirs is the priority.

Tax is only half the picture.

The lowest tax bill is not always the most money. Shrinking taxable income can also shrink benefits like OAS or GIS. We model every strategy against your total wealth, not just the tax line, and marry the two.

Why the answer is not the same for everyone

The best strategy depends on what you are optimizing for.

Optimal can mean many different things to many people. Ensuring your objective meets your tax optimization is the most important part of this, and we break each of the four strategies down. The same person, with the same accounts, gets four different outcomes from these four strategies.

Your time horizon

A shorter horizon leans toward tax today; a longer one rewards melting registered accounts early.

Your goals

Spending freely in your good years and leaving a large estate pull in different directions. One number cannot serve both.

Your whole picture

OAS clawback, RRIF minimums, pensions, and other income all shift which strategy actually wins for you.

See all four run against your numbers.

We will model each strategy on your real plan and walk you through the trade-offs, so you can choose the one that fits your life.

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