The TFSA is an ideal complement to an RRSP because it provides you with an additional source of retirement income. Used in this way, it offers five key advantages.

It allows you to put more money away for your retirement, even if you have used up your RRSP contribution room and even if your pension adjustment factor (associated with your pension plan) prevents you from making additional RRSP contributions.
It provides you with net amounts at retirement, regardless of your tax rate, while RRSP withdrawals are taxable (if your marginal tax rate has increased, your tax bill on an RRSP withdrawal could be larger than your tax saving when you made the contribution).
It doesn’t require you to follow a withdrawal schedule and deplete your retirement capital within a certain number of years; an RRSP, on the other hand, has to be converted into a RRIF or an annuity in the year you turn 71, and you must begin making withdrawals at that time.
Since no income attribution rules apply to the TFSA, you can give your spouse money for his or her TFSA without any danger of having the income on it attributed to you (which can happen with a spousal RRSP), perhaps even to the point of cancelling out the advantages of income splitting. Moreover, at retirement, you can withdraw money from your TFSA without worrying about the tax treatment.
If you don’t need to use all of the money you are legally obliged to withdraw from your RRIF, you can put some in your TFSA, where it can continue to grow while sheltered from taxes.
Finally, since a TFSA withdrawal is not taxable income, it won’t count against your benefit entitlement under government programs; some of these programs, such as Old Age Security, start clawing back benefits once you reach a certain threshold of taxable income.

For more information or to open your FÉRIQUE TFSA:
Use our toll-free line from wherever you are, with no waiting, 8:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m., Monday to Friday.

1 800 291-0337

You can also reach us by e-mail at: service.ferique@bnc.ca