Just when you think you may have mastered all of your options concerning pension plans another one surfaces. You have a good idea of what you can gain with a Registered Retirement Savings Plan, and you know that you have your Canada Pension Plan intact for your retirement years. What you may not know about is the Pooled Registered Pension Plan, or for short the PRPP.
This pension plan also focuses on funding for your retirement years, and can even be utilized by those who are classed as self-employed. It is great for individuals who move from different employments. It has lower administration costs attached to it which one of the reasons it may be more beneficial to those that opt into it. It really is quite similar to the other types of registered pension plans.
Now the big thing is to determine if you can qualify for this PRPP. To do so you have to have your social insurance number and either be an employee in or be self employed in the Northwest Territories, Nunavut or Yukon. Plus you have to be working in a federally regulated business or industry or be living in a Province that has the mandated provincial standards legislation in place. This new pension option became available in January 1, 2013.
Now if you are currently living and working in Toronto you may wonder why this would be of any interest to you. It may not, but if you are considering moving to or obtaining work in these areas then you should know that this pension option may be available to you. In addition to this however in regards to eligibility the Ontario Government don’t forget is proposing to bring in an additional pension plan, plus they have indicated that they will enable legislation as mentioned about regarding this PRPP, so it may be available in some cases to Ontarians as well.
It would seem that there is a lot of interest in pension plans, and rightly so as the government is concerned about the finances of its seniors in years to come. The consensus is that there are just not enough people thinking about their financial situation for the senior years and are not planning for this. By making compulsory pension regulations for companies that don’t offer private pension plans the government may see this as a way of warding off this future financial problem.
