Canada Pension Plan

[Mike or Penny Novack]

This is really just a special case or a more general accounting problem, 
namely, contingent assets and contingent liabilities. The problem with 
these assets or liabilities is that they depend on events which might or 
might not occur, and so have no well defined Balance Sheet value.

If looking at a formal financial report done by auditors, we would see 
information about "contingencies" appearing as note in the report. In 
other words, notes that explained that there were things, possibly big 
things, not appearing in the Balance Sheet.

Back to the original question, how to treat the payments into the 
government program. I'd treat that as an expense for now,with no balance 
sheet asset in exchange. Your "books"are (or should be) just part of 
your financial planning. The calculations for that should be using tools 
made for that purpose, not an accounting package.

To forestall questions, on a personal level, an example of a contingent 
liability might be "co-signer on  a loan".  You wouldn't expect to see 
that on your Balance Sheet but it is of significance to your overall 
financial situation.

Michael D Novack