October 2020: If you will be 71 by the end of this year, you must convert your RRSP to a RRIF and begin drawing income from your RRIF next year. Consider basing the minimum RRIF withdrawal on the age of a younger spouse. This will keep your required annual RRIF withdrawals as low as possible each year and allow you to keep more in your RRIF, thus deferring tax longer. Don’t forget, you can still use your RRSP room by making a contributions to a younger spouse’s Spousal RRSP. If you earned RRSP room this year, it may make sense to make a final RRSP contribution to your own plan before year end. The benefit of the tax deduction may more than offset the one month penalty tax for an overcontribution in December. Be sure to get advice before implementing these strategies.
(For 2020, CRA made a one time change to the minimum RRIF withdrawal rules, allowing us to reduce our required 2020 taxable payments by 25%)
