I envisioned a scenario where a taxpayer moved to Canada in, say, 2023, and opened a TFSA soon afterwards. Because he was previously a non-resident, the taxpayer’s TFSA contribution room for 2023 was only $6,500. Due to a misunderstanding of the rules, the taxpayer contributed $19,500 to his TFSA and invested it all in the shares of one company. Before he had a chance to withdraw his $13,000 overcontribution, the company went bankrupt and the value of the shares in his TFSA dropped to zero.
The CRA responded that the taxpayer in this case is unable to withdraw any amounts from their TFSA and, therefore, “would be unable to mitigate the tax in this manner. Only new TFSA contribution room that becomes available to the individual in future years will serve to reduce the excess TFSA amount … the individual is unable to withdraw any amounts from their TFSA … would have no authority to waive or cancel the tax.
Assuming the individual doesn’t make any additional contributions to his TFSA before 2026 and the TFSA dollar limit for each of 2024 and 2025 remained at $6,500, the excess TFSA amount would be reduced to $6,500 as of Jan. 1, 2024, and fully eliminated as of Jan. 1, 2025. The net result is that the individual would be liable for the one-per-cent monthly tax in 2023 and 2024. The individual could resume making TFSA contributions again in 2025.
This is truly an absurd result and calls for a legislative fix. In the meantime, a taxpayer in this type of situation couldThe other question some readers had was whether it ever makes sense to deliberately overcontribute to a TFSA in the hope that any penalty tax could be offset by the tax-free gain in the TFSA.
For example, let’s say Katy receives a hot tip about a penny stock expected to double within a month. She’s fully maxed out her TFSA contribution room, but deliberately overcontributes $500,000 into her TFSA in May 2023, and invests it all in that one stock. Sure enough, a month later, the stock doubles to $1 million inside her TFSA. She’s more than happy to pay a one-per-cent penalty tax of $5,000 on her $500,000 overcontribution.