This type of income sheltering account is long overdue in Canada. Rampant spending or rampant saving, they both have their positives and negatives, just wish they would have had these accounts available 5 years ago so the present pain could be cushioned. Hopefully we don't see 20billion in deficit like they are predicting.
Just in reply to the 1% a month penalty for anything over $5k? Where do you see this? A 1% penalty is nothing, unless of course you don't make over 1% a month trading, which pretty much means you should be looking to get out of the trading business.
Now just why on earth Canada is trying to increase the savings rate in middle of a awful financial crisis...
I'm pretty sure the TFSA was designed prior to the financial meltdown during the boom times.After all were talking about a government proposal being enacted.These thing take time.It made sense when billions were being poured into the Canadian economy and the TSX was flying.
The 1% penalty is right from the CCRA's web site. Here's one from RBC. http://www.rbcdirectinvesting.com/tax-free-savings-account.html (scroll down) I was even thinking about putting 100k in... I can make 950 a month for the first 12 months, then 850 a month for the following 12 months and so on.... I'm going to start with 10k on Monday and go from there. B