As the clock ticks down toward the RRSP deadline of March 1, there still seems to be some confusion as to what this deadline is really all about.
After all, you can make an RRSP contribution any day of the year, including weekends and holidays, given the ability to go online and make that contribution with the click of a mouse, 24 hours a day. To wit, gone are the years in which your bank branch would stay open until midnight to capture those last-minute RRSP contributions.
So, what is the deadline?
The deadline is really referring to the RRSP contribution deadline, which is the last day you can make an RRSP contribution and still be able to claim that contribution as a deduction on your 2012 income tax return. This is likely the source from whence the confusion arises.
This week I received a call from a client who was rushing to make the RRSP deadline and had nearly $100,000 of unused RRSP contribution room. While he had several hundred thousand dollars sitting in investments in a non-registered account, he wanted to figure out the optimal amount to contribute that would bring his income down into a lower bracket.
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