The brunt of the annual RRSP season won’t be felt until the weather gets a lot colder, which makes now a good time for advisors to go to the Internet for a quick refresher course.

The Web sites below are all worth a visit, and you may want to pass the addresses along to your clients in your next newsletter or e-mail. After all, many people get a bit of time off around the holiday season, and your clients might want to spend that time pondering their retirement savings.



RRSP.org

www.rrsp.org

The first spot to stop when it comes to RRSPs is this Web site, created long ago by Montreal financial advisor Doug Hudson. Unlike many Web site designers, Hudson does not feel compelled to be forever tearing down and rebuilding his site, adding the latest gimmicks or bells and whistles. Instead, www.RRSP.org is largely unchanged from its original format, which is rather comforting for seasonal visitors.

The home page is clutter-free and easy to navigate, offering a few articles and two long rows of links to financial resources that will be useful to advisors. An orange-toned menu that runs across the very top of the site will quickly lead you to many areas, such as RRSPs, tax planning, book reviews and estate planning. Each area is small, but all are to the point. The RRSP section, for instance, offers nine short articles, ranging from the ABCs of RRSPs to spousal plans, foreign content, borrowing for an RRSP, the Homebuyer’s Plan and a chart of annual contribution limits. A few articles are flagged by Hudson as being outdated, but the site is worth a visit anyway.



Vancity RRSPs

www.vancity.com

Vancouver City Savings Credit Union has a very handy section on RRSPs in the “my money” financial planning section, located in the upper left-hand corner of the home page of its Web site.

There are 16 separate pages in the section, each addressing different aspects of RRSP investing, such as a general description of the plans, 10 RRSP tips, an explanation of compounded interest and an interesting article and chart that explains why Canadians should make regular annual contributions.

One area, “starting early,” is worth passing along to clients with teenagers. The scenario shows two Canadians who are the same age. One opens an RRSP at age 19 and contributes $2,000 a year until age 42, and then stops making any deposits. The other completely ignores the idea until age 42, when he opens an RRSP, and then deposits $7,700 a year, for 24 years, to “catch up” with his friend. In the year they both turn 65, the two RRSPs are each worth $412,000, based on an annual investment return of 6%. The big difference, however, is that the first person only deposited $48,000 into the plan, while the late starter deposited $184,800.

A separate area, “the cost of delay,” will help hammer home the point to any clients who lean toward procrastination. An individual aged 25 who puts $5,000 into an RRSP one time will see it grow to more than $51,000 by age 65, at a 6% annual rate of return. In contrast, $5,000 deposited at age 35 would total $28,717; the same amount deposited at 45 would be just $16,000 by age 65.



Canada Revenue Agency

www.cra-arc.gc.ca

One of the main purposes of building an RRSP is to fend off the taxman during the career years, so where better to go for a few pointers but the heart of the beast. The Canada Revenue Agency isn’t going to bend over backward to show you or your clients how to send it less money, but it will bring you up to date on its latest decisions and regulations.

The quickest way to get to the RRSP section is to visit the CRA’s home page, and then click on “RRSP” in the centre and slightly to the left-hand side. The page that will pop up has a lot to offer.

Gold and silver in RRSPs

The centre of the page has a “what’s new” icon, which gives details of the elimination of the 30% foreign-content rule and updates on any changes that now count as qualified plan investments. The latest change, for example, notes that investment-grade gold and silver coins and bars, and their certificates, have been allowed into RRSPs since Feb. 23.

@page_break@A menu that runs down the left-hand side of the main page also offers tips on setting up and contributing to a plan, making or repaying withdrawals, transferring assets between plans and options a planholder faces when turning age 69, which is the last year contributions are allowed. Advice and tax forms are available that deal with various scenarios if a planholder dies



Canoe Money

http://money.canoe.ca/PersonalFinance/RRSP/

The previous Web sites will have you in full RRSP mode, so the last place to visit is the investment section of Canoe.

There are two very good reasons to keep this site handy in the coming months: you’ll get lots of daily news stories on RRSPs, and there are excellent real-time tables showing the most recent rates for RRSPs, registered retirement income funds and guaranteed investment certificates.

The “RRSP news” section is largely a collection of investment and personal finance stories from The Canadian Press, but there are also some advice columns and articles from other outlets that are worth a quick read. IE



If you have Web sites to share with IE readers, please send an e-mail to Glenn Flanagan (gflanagan@sympatico.ca).