Helpful tax tips or do I need to just bend over and take it?

[Duncan]

considering he lives the life he does and claims that he's in the lowest tax bracket... AND he passed an audit... sometimes it pays to be a cheap number crunching chinese guy

[nature boy]

the sad thing is i think i AM in the lowest tax bracket haha.

[Wetundies]

[nature boy]

"can't" and "won't bother to" are two different things.

[Duncan]

[nature boy]

yeah, my take home isn't bad, also considering that i get most of my income tax that i was supposed to pay still on my cheque because of those forms.
however, i think i'm going to miss the money i used to get on my return. we used to save that to insure the cars.

[Duncan]

yea, that's why i don't bother filling out the forms so i net more monthly. I'd probably only do that if i had a mortgage that i had to pay monthly. I like getting a fat tax return chq... i know i could invest that extra monthly cash, but i don't have the discipline to

[joel]

depending on how large your tax return is, and the rate of return on your investment, the difference could be negligible.

for instance a $2400 tax return, and a 4% annual rate of return on your investment would only give you an additional $52.64 at the end of the year.

[nature boy]

from what i remember i used to get close to 4k.

[joel]

[nature boy]

but isn't it different cause i don't put the full 4k in the bank right away, but i have a little every month. so max i could get is 83 bucks but it's much less than that in actuality, right?

[joel]

no factored that in my calculations. the 83 bucks is if you were getting roughly 333 per month from your return and with your return on investment being compounded monthly too.

[Duncan]

but once again, it's if you're disciplined enough to invest it... you could set up an auto withdrawal from your account and deposit into your investment so at the end of the day, you'd get the same per paychq if you didn't fill the forms, but your 333/mo is gaining in your investment. especially with the tax free savings acct these days, your 4k/yr would be perfectly slotted into the 5k allowed per year. 83 bucks isn't much a year, it's slightly less than $7/mo, but hey, investments should be thought of as a long term deal.

Mind you, the 4% ROI that joel's talking about is a tricky to get in today's market. But if you invest long term (say do this for the next 10 yrs), you'll probably see a higher than 4% because the market's in a lull right now as we all know.

[nature boy]

we actually do put a bit in our tax free account every month. i don't think it's the same amount as we had a lot of expenses over the summer with the trip and all, but we do put in every month.

as well as our rrsp contributions and such.

[Duncan]

do you get pension with elcic?