Path: utzoo!ncc!alberta!watmath!onfcanim!dave
From: dave@onfcanim.UUCP (Dave Martindale)
Newsgroups: can.general
Subject: Re: income tax tips #13: RRSPs
Message-ID: <15561@onfcanim.UUCP>
Date: 2 Mar 88 16:09:15 GMT
References: <1988Feb18.123536.23901@lsuc.uucp> <923@micomvax.UUCP>
Reply-To: dave@onfcanim.UUCP (Dave Martindale)
Distribution: can
Organization: National Film Board / Office national du film, Montreal
Lines: 26

In article <923@micomvax.UUCP> ray@micomvax.UUCP (Ray Dunn) writes:
>>...  The $7,500 limitation
>>applies if you are not a member of a company pension plan.  If you
>>are, your limit is $3,500 minus any contributions you make to the
>>pension plan
>
>How can anyone afford to be in a company pension plan?  It has to be a
>bloody good plan before it is worthwhile relinquishing the $4000 extra RRSP
>contribution availability.

Well, there is the employer's contribution to the plan, so it isn't
as bad as it appears, but it's still not fair.
It would be fair if the RRSP eligibility for people in a company pension
plan was $7500 minus the sum of the employee and employer contributions -
that way everybody lives under the same rules, and everybody can put
a maximum of $7500 (or 20% of income) into tax-sheltered plans.

Under the current rules, if I contribute $2000 to the pension plan I
can put another $1500 into an RRSP.  That plus the $2000 my employer
contributed makes $5500, $2000 short of the $7500 I could have
stashed away without the company plan.  Is there any rationale for
this inequality?

And some of us have no choice about contributing to the "company" pension
plan - we have to belong, and the level of contributions is fixed.
(My "company" is the federal government.)