Financial Basics Update #1

I have made the following changes, updates and improvements to the Financial Basics series.

August 5, 2015

Financial Basics 2 - Income Tax

I removed the comment that the tax rate in Alberta is a flat 10%, since this will be changing in 2016.



Financial Basics 3 - How Different Savings Accounts Work

I added the following bullet to the description of an RRSP account

• Contributions do not have to be deducted from taxes in the current year and can be carried over and deducted in subsequent years.

I modified the following under TFSA for the change in TFSA limits in 2015.

• Contribution limit for 2009 to 2012 was $5000, for 2013 to 2014 it was $5500 and is now $10,000 from 2015 onward.  The contribution limit used to be indexed to CPI (consumer price index, or inflation) and rounded to the nearest $500, but with the increase in the limit in 2015, the indexing now no longer applies. 

Financial Basics 4 - Self-directed Accounts

I added the following paragraph to clarify why you would need a US $ account.

If you will be trading in securities in US dollars, or need a US $ account and credit card for purchases in the US, the following features are required. They come free with an Investorline account.

• US dollar conversion and US dollar cash account within Taxable account.
• Ability to pay your US$ credit card from the US dollar account.