EQ Bank savings accounts, TFSA, and RRSP rates dropping to 1.25% | Page 8 | EQ Bank | Discussion forum

HermanH said

I included some dates to clarify, but you can (re-)deposit all of the previous year's 12500 and the new year's additional contribution allowance 6000 at the same time on 2022-01-01.  

That’s right. A withdrawal can always be recontributed the following year or later regardless of the contributions you have made concerning the official contribution limit. Keep your official contribution limits separate from your withdrawals and the gains are just money sitting in your TFSA. A withdrawal has absolutely no designation with regards to a contribution, a gain, or a recontribution, a withdrawal is money taken out of your TFSA regardless of how it got there. The only exception would be if you over contributed and were forced to withdraw the excessive allotment.

pooreva said
Thank you VERY much HermanH and Vatox for clarification.
To my understanding, this means, whoever wants to change FI can take ALL money from FI1-TFSA (for example $150K) in Dec 2021 and deposit in Jan 2022 ALL $150K into FI2-TFSA plus regular 6K for 2022.  

Because it warranted a separate discussion on this topic, a thread was started recently that covers this in detail.
https://www.highinterestsavings.ca/forum/tax-free-savings-accounts/how-is-tfsa-contribution-room-determined-do-all-withdrawals-increase-the-max/

The bottom line appears to be that ANY amount withdrawn, including any gains, gets added to the max contribution limits for the following year, on top of annual contribution room allowances.

HermanH said
I called CT and they acknowledged receipt of the same e-mail contents and said that they would continue to work towards completing the transfer. I asked if the original transfer request was sufficient / still valid or would my mother need to submit another transfer request due to the original being declined. They did not know, so I asked for one just in case. Hopefully, they will be able to append the confirmation letter and finish the original transfer.  

CT and EQ managed to work out the arrangements between them and satisfied their concerns. No additional paperwork was required from our end.

July 15: EQ was in the process of sending the cheque to CT when CT (2021-07-18) decided to drop their rate from 1.55% to 1.25%, so it was no better than EQ (after all this hassle.)

July 19: So, I called CT and asked them to just terminate the request altogether. They said that the cheque had not arrived, but they would simply return any EQ cheque that arrives and the transaction would not be completed.

Also called EQ and they looked around the office and found the cheque had not yet been mailed. They canceled it and returned the funds to the TFSA account.

Now, to try the same process with WealthOne, the last bank with a TFSA of 1.5%

Thank you for your concern. I just double-checked with EQ bank rep and he assured us that the cancellation of the transfer request was in time and we can treat the account as though nothing has happened. 🙂

It's true, but EQ charges no transfer fee and the difference was CT 1.55% v EQ 1.25% and we had no idea CT was going to drop its rate any time soon.

That differential made it worthwhile, IMO. Even had the transfer gone through, she would have been no worse off with CT at 1.25% because EQ is at the same rate. There should have been no financial downside; only a waste of time. 🙂