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Pension & Retirement |
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Questions about your pension are best answered by a pensions specialist. The Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan Board provides this service on line and by telephone. As well, you can sign up on the site to receive the newsletter Pension News electronically. The OTPP site also provides a wealth of information on the investments and governance of the plan. Should you take your Canada Pension (CPP) at 60? General information on the Canada Pension Plan and the necessary forms are available at the Human Resources and Social Development Canada website. In order to be eligible to receive CPP, you must be not working or earn less than the allowed amount (about $900.00 -- check with Service Canada) in the month prior to and the month of your application. Your CPP is reduced by .5% each month you are under 65 years of age. Until you are 65, CPP is added to your teachers’ pension. Once you are 65, the CPP is integrated with your OTPP. You can read about pension integration in the Summer, 2003 issue of PensionWise, the pension newsletter for active teachers.
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Introduction of Pension Income Splitting
Starting in 2007, pensioners will be able to split their corporate pension plan income with their spouse or common law partner. Previously, pensioners were unable to split their income, expect in the case of the Canada Pension Plan. As a result, householders where one retiree's income was greater than their partner's were paying significantly more tax than a household with a similar total income, but split evenly. This measure will allow any Canadian senior who receives income that qualifies for the existing pension income tax credit to allocate one-half of that income to their resident spouse or common-law partner. To read more about this, and other tax changes that affect seniors, visit the website of the Canada Retirement Information Centre or the website of the Canada Revenue Agency, Tax Relief for Canadian Seniors. |
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