IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/cdh/commen/336.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Legal for Life: Why Canadians Need a Lifetime Retirement Saving Limit

Author

Listed:
  • James Pierlot

    (Pierlot Pension Law)

  • Faisal Siddiqi

    (Buck Consultants)

Abstract

Canadian tax rules allow accumulation of retirement savings in “tax assisted” plans, including defined-benefit (DB) pension plans, defined-contribution (DC) pension plans and RRSPs. These plans are intended primarily for workers with “middle class” incomes, who will not receive enough pension income from programs such as Old Age Security (OAS) and the Canada/Quebec Pension Plan (C/QPP). But more than 12 million Canadian workers do not participate in a DB pension. Many will need to save for retirement, and must do so in DC pension plans and RRSPs. In the current environment of low interest rates, an aging population, and increasing longevity, these workers have less time to save for retirement and must save more. But can they?

Suggested Citation

  • James Pierlot & Faisal Siddiqi, 2011. "Legal for Life: Why Canadians Need a Lifetime Retirement Saving Limit," C.D. Howe Institute Commentary, C.D. Howe Institute, issue 336, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:cdh:commen:336
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.cdhowe.org/legal-life-why-canadians-need-lifetime-retirement-saving-limit-0
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Kevin D. Moore & William Robson & Alexandre Laurin, 2010. "Canada’s Looming Retirement Challenge: Will Future Retirees Be Able to Maintain Their Living Standards upon Retirement?," C.D. Howe Institute Commentary, C.D. Howe Institute, issue 317, December.
    2. Tammy Schirle, 2008. "Greener Pastures: Understanding the Impact of Retirement Incentives in Defined-benefit Pension Plans," C.D. Howe Institute Commentary, C.D. Howe Institute, issue 262, May.
    3. James Pierlot, 2008. "A Pension in Every Pot: Better Pensions for More Canadians," C.D. Howe Institute Commentary, C.D. Howe Institute, issue 275, November.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Ake Blomqvist & Colin Busby, 2012. "Better Value for Money in Healthcare: European Lessons for Canada," C.D. Howe Institute Commentary, C.D. Howe Institute, issue 339, January.
    2. William Robson & Alex Laurin, 2014. "Ottawa’s Hidden Deficit: The Widening Gap between Federal Government Pension Liabilities and Assets," C.D. Howe Institute Commentary, C.D. Howe Institute, issue 406, April.
    3. Malcolm P. Hamilton, 2014. "Evaluating Public-Sector Pensions: Are Federal Public Servants Overpaid?," C.D. Howe Institute Commentary, C.D. Howe Institute, issue 405, April.
    4. William B.P. Robson, 2012. "Fixing MP Pensions: Parliamentarians Must Lead Canada's Move to Fairer, and Better-Funded Retirements," C.D. Howe Institute Backgrounder, C.D. Howe Institute, issue 146, January.
    5. Jana Steele & Mel Bartlett & Angela Maserolle, 2014. "Target- Benefit Plans in Canada – An Innovation Worth Expanding," C.D. Howe Institute Commentary, C.D. Howe Institute, issue 411, July.
    6. James Pierlot & Alexandre Laurin, 2012. "Pooled Registered Pension Plans: Pension Saviour - or a New Tax on the Poor?," C.D. Howe Institute Commentary, C.D. Howe Institute, issue 359, August.
    7. Alexandre Laurin, 2014. "The Overlooked Option for Boosting Retirement Savings: Higher Limits for RRSPs," e-briefs 183, C.D. Howe Institute.
    8. Keith Ambachtsheer & Keith Waitzer, 2011. "Saving Pooled Registered Pension Plans: It's Up To the Provinces," e-briefs 128, C.D. Howe Institute.
    9. Alex Laurin & William Robson, 2013. "Prudence and Opportunity: A Shadow Federal Budget for 2013," C.D. Howe Institute Commentary, C.D. Howe Institute, issue 375, March.
    10. Alex Laurin, 2017. "Off Target: Assessing the Fairness of Ottawa’s Proposed Tax Reforms for “Passive” Investments in CCPCs," C.D. Howe Institute Commentary, C.D. Howe Institute, issue 493, October.
    11. William B.P. Robson & Alexandre Laurin, 2015. "Ottawa's Secret Debt: The Burden and Risks of Federal Employee Pensions," e-briefs 208, C.D. Howe Institute.
    12. William Robson, 2012. "Ottawa's Pension Abyss: The Rapid Hidden Growth of Federal-Employee Retirement Liabilities," C.D. Howe Institute Commentary, C.D. Howe Institute, issue 370, December.
    13. Alexandre Laurin & William B.P. Robson, 2011. "Ottawa's Pension Gap: The Growing and Under-reported Cost of Federal Employee Pensions," e-briefs 127, C.D. Howe Institute.
    14. William B.P. Robson & Alexandre Laurin, 2012. "Federal Employee Pension Reforms: First Steps - on a Much Longer Journey," e-briefs 140, C.D. Howe Institute.
    15. William B.P. Robson & Alexandre Laurin, 2018. "Retiring Employees, Unretired Debt: The Surprising Hidden Cost of Federal Employee Pensions," C.D. Howe Institute Commentary, C.D. Howe Institute, issue 514, May.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Geoffrey Young, 2012. "Winners and Losers: The Inequities within Government-Sector, Defined-Benefit Pension Plans," C.D. Howe Institute Commentary, C.D. Howe Institute, issue 347, April.
    2. Angelo Melino, 2011. "Moving Monetary Policy Forward: Why Small Steps - and a Lower Inflation Target - Make Sense for the Bank of Canada," C.D. Howe Institute Commentary, C.D. Howe Institute, issue 319, January.
    3. Bev Dahlby & Kevin Milligan, 2017. "From theory to practice: Canadian economists’ contributions to public finance," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 50(5), pages 1324-1347, December.
    4. Robert French & Philip Oreopoulos, 2017. "Applying behavioural economics to public policy in Canada," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 50(3), pages 599-635, August.
    5. Alexandre Laurin, 2014. "The Overlooked Option for Boosting Retirement Savings: Higher Limits for RRSPs," e-briefs 183, C.D. Howe Institute.
    6. David A. Dodge & Richard Dion, 2011. "Chronic Healthcare Spending Disease: A Macro Diagnosis and Prognosis," C.D. Howe Institute Commentary, C.D. Howe Institute, issue 327, April.
    7. Keith Ambachtsheer, 2014. "Helping Ontarians Save for Retirement: How the Province Could Adapt the Canada Supplementary Pension Plan," e-briefs 172, C.D. Howe Institute.
    8. Christopher Ragan, 2011. "Precision Targeting: The Economics – and Politics – of Improving Canada’s Inflation-Targeting Framework," C.D. Howe Institute Commentary, C.D. Howe Institute, issue 321, February.
    9. Philippe Bergevin & William B.P. Robson, 2011. "The Costs of Inflexible Indexing: Avoiding the Adverse Fiscal Impacts of Lower Inflation," C.D. Howe Institute Commentary, C.D. Howe Institute, issue 322, February.
    10. Finn Poschmann, 2011. "What Governments Should Do in Mortgage Markets," C.D. Howe Institute Commentary, C.D. Howe Institute, issue 318, January.
    11. Pierre Fortin, 2011. "Staying the Course: Quebec's Fiscal Balance Challenge," C.D. Howe Institute Commentary, C.D. Howe Institute, issue 325, March.
    12. Steve E. Hrudey, 2011. "Safe Drinking Water Policy for Canada - Turning Hindsight into Foresight," C.D. Howe Institute Commentary, C.D. Howe Institute, issue 323, February.
    13. Jeremy Kronick & Alexandre Laurin, 2016. "The Bigger Picture: How the Fourth Pillar Impacts Retirement Preparedness," C.D. Howe Institute Commentary, C.D. Howe Institute, issue 457, September.
    14. Bruno Rainville & Nabil Annabi & Maxime Fougère & Bruno Rainville, 2011. "General Equilibrium Effects of Pension Reforms to Increase Retirement Income in Canada," EcoMod2011 2948, EcoMod.
    15. Malcolm P. Hamilton, 2014. "Evaluating Public-Sector Pensions: Are Federal Public Servants Overpaid?," C.D. Howe Institute Commentary, C.D. Howe Institute, issue 405, April.
    16. Pierre Lefebvre & Philip Merrigan & Pierre-Carl Michaud, 2011. "The Recent Evolution of Retirement Patterns in Canada," Social and Economic Dimensions of an Aging Population Research Papers 287, McMaster University.
    17. Peter Hicks, 2012. "Later Retirement: the Win-Win Solution," C.D. Howe Institute Commentary, C.D. Howe Institute, issue 345, March.
    18. Arthur J. Cockfield, 2008. "Finding Silver Linings in the Storm: An Evaluation of Recent Canada-US Crossborder Developments," C.D. Howe Institute Commentary, C.D. Howe Institute, issue 272, September.
    19. William B.P. Robson, 2017. "Rethinking Limits on Tax-Deferred Retirement Savings in Canada," C.D. Howe Institute Commentary, C.D. Howe Institute, issue 495, November.
    20. David Longworth, 2010. "Warding Off Financial Market Failure: How to Avoid Squeezed Margins and Bad Haircuts," C.D. Howe Institute Backgrounder, C.D. Howe Institute, issue 135, December.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Pension Papers; Canada; defined-benefit (DB) pension plans; defined-contribution (CD) pension plans; RRSPs;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • H2 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue
    • J32 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs - - - Nonwage Labor Costs and Benefits; Retirement Plans; Private Pensions
    • J38 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs - - - Public Policy

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:cdh:commen:336. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Kristine Gray (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/cdhowca.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.