How to deal with RRSP's (Canada)

[Mike or Penny Novack]

On 1/5/2018 1:05 AM, David T. via gnucash-user wrote:
> David—
>
> I see where you are coming from on this.
>
> For reference, I accept your 5 assumptions; I believe they are accurate for many US retirement accounts as well.
>
> .........
> I guess, from a philosophical perspective, the question really is: when do these funds become income? Is it when you get paid, or is it when the money actually gets disbursed? It seems to me that most of us are looking at it from the first perspective, but that the taxing agencies are looking at it from the second. So, for example, I have paycheck transactions that document my retirement contributions, transferring to the retirement asset accounts from a special (retirement) income account
> David
There are ADDITIONAL questions if a US 401k. For example, are company 
contributions vested immediately or only over time? Here is a typical 
case (yours might be different)
1) Company contributions are vested 10% per year.
2) Any still unvested contributions become fully vested upon retirement 
at normal age (possibly also separation earlier but after age 55) or 
upon death if earlier.

In other words, the company contributions are conditional on staying 
with the company. They are in the account and earning but there is a 
diminishing liability (you have to pay back the unvested portion if you 
leave)

The 401k account MAY also have after tax contributions made to it, but 
that only affects how distributions will be taxed.

Another benefit that some companies offer is "split dollar" insurance. 
Very complicated to figure its affect on net worth. With split dollar, 
the company still owns the policy but you get to select the beneficiary 
<< the rights associated with ownership of an insurance policy can be 
separated >> Called "split" because the employee is taxed for the 
premium of the same amount term policy. Often to prevent that 
complication, the employee is billed that amount. At termination the 
employee has the right to:
1) Surrender the policy paying the company back for the premiums from 
the accumulated policy values keeping the remainder.
2) Pay the company that amount and keep the policy.
Note that there is a hard to calculate value associated with that choice 
<< what is your health status at this time in the future when you have 
to make that decision.

Note that this is simply a special case of things that might affect 
"effective" net worth or income but are difficult to carry on the (main) 
books. For example, a job might provide in addition to salary, housing, 
use of a vehicle, etc. << and this could even be tax free "income" 
depending on the circumstances >>

Michael D Novack