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Email this10:14 am
November 18, 2014
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I started to open an online savings account at EQ Bank and realized that it’s not available for Quebec residents when you have to select the province of residence. I saw this some years ago with Ally Bank and it has to do with additional regulations in Quebec or so I’ve been told.
I called EQ to confirm and also asked if there was anything stopping me from using the Ottawa address of property I own there. (Don’t ask why I own property in Ontario and still live in Quebec). The agent chuckled and said the conversation was being recorded that they were working hard to get Quebec registered and that since I’m a Quebec resident it wasn’t available to me at the current time.
I got to thinking about this and since everything is online and I can provide a valid Ontario address, what difference does it make where I live, since everything is done online. The only hiccup I see is that when they issue tax receipts at years end, as it will have my proper name with an Ontario address but I’m thinking the government wouldn’t care as long as I’m declaring the income.
Any thoughts or insight would be greatly appreciated.
11:32 am
December 12, 2009
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I think they do this because of either (a) Quebec's provincial language laws or, more likely, (b) Quebec's separate and stricter financial consumer protection laws or maybe even both of the aforementioned reasons. 🙂
Sometimes, if you can provide a non-Quebec physical and mailing address, they'll even let you update your addresses to a Quebec-based one post-sign-up.
If you don't mind your income tax receipts being mailed to your Ontario mailing address, and having that Ontario address possibly show up as an alternate address on your credit bureau report, there should be no tax consequences as provincial income taxation is determined by the province in which you declare on your income tax and benefit return to be residing each year and that's supported by where you derive the bulk of your earnings. So long as this would not be substantially all of your yearly earnings, there should be no issues to this. 🙂
Hope that helps,
Doug
P.S. Keep in mind if some forum members reply to this quoting legislation to the contrary, they're likely quoting it in an abstract way at best as no public body will provide advice you're seeking so, in effect, take it with a "grain of salt". Legislatively, they would advise against it more to protect their own assess but, in actuality, what I've suggest is what would happen. 🙂
11:42 am
August 4, 2010
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The only thing I can think of is that having different provinces on T-slips might very slightly raise the chance that CRA's cross-checks would want to confirm you've entered your province of residence correctly, but since the majority of your slips would all be for Quebec, I doubt it would make any real difference.
12:25 pm
September 11, 2013
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This isn't about taxes, CRA, etc, from what I can see. EQ has a position that it doesn't offer the accounts to residents of Quebec, as the agent told deepcman. deepcman said he lives in Quebec. So if he uses documentation tied to another province that he does not live in in order to create the impression to EQ that he does not live in Quebec, he'd be lying, no?
12:45 pm
April 7, 2017
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While I don't know the technicalities of "why" no EQ in Quebec, CRA rules or what defines a permanent residence. I quess there could be different tax rates on the interest for the provincial piece Ontario vs Quebec and how would Ontario get their share?
But the easy part would be doing taxes without the T slip that was mailed from Ontario, if when doing taxes you download the T slips from CRA site to your income tax program.
I would think T slips with 2 different addresses province wise and what you state for your home address and if you declare you have or have not moved to another province......could flag your tax return for further scrutiny.
1:27 pm
October 21, 2013
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To the extent that EQ checks you out with a credit agency (and I expect they would do a soft check - you could ask them about this and they should tell you), the address you gave wouldn't line up with your credit profile. This could cause EQ to turn down your application. It might, technically, constitute fraudulent application. If the application asks you where you are "resident", not just for your address, then that's what they expect you to give them. I am not a lawyer and this is not legal advice; just my thinking.
I agree that it has to do with QC consumer protection and language regulations. It's not that they don't want your money! Some of the smaller FIs, however, don't find it worth their while to go through all the hoops.
In any event, why provoke trouble, either with EQ or CRA?
6:00 am
November 18, 2014
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Thanks to everyone for the great feedback and suggestions.
I think the showstopper would be that they check the application against the credit bureau as indicated in the following pop-up which is not very evident on their site. “To open your new account, we need to check your details with a third-party credit bureau. By clicking Next, you give us permission to do so. This does NOT impact your credit score in any way. If you have questions about why we need to do this, please contact us (eqbank.ca/contact-us).”
Based on my conversation with the rep, it doesn't sound like they'll be coming to Quebec anytime soon.
7:25 am
January 3, 2013
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I opened mine when I wasn't in Quebec almost 2 years ago. After moving to Quebec, I called and got my address updated. They updated and everything has been working as it was used to (Exception is when it comes to report the interest for both Federal and Quebec Revenues).
You could use your ON address and when it is all settled, call them and have your address updated to Quebec.
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