Category Archives: Money Tips

How to Create More Savings Accounts at EQ Bank for Different Purposes

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Ok so far I’m fairly pleased with how opening my new Savings account at EQ Bank has gone. I applied and sent in a cheque by taking a photo of it with their App on January 25. On February 2, the cheque cleared my bank. On February 6, I received an email from EQ Bank saying they had processed my cheque and in 5 business days my account would be fully open. And on Tuesday February 10, I received the Welcome email saying my account was now fully activated. On Friday February 12, I decided to test the electronic funds transfer option by pulling in some cash from my linked bank account at Tangerine and by pushing out some money from EQ Bank to Tangerine. Now I want to deposit a cheque written on an unlinked account at PC Financial but I don’t really want the money in my main EQ Bank account because it’s for a separate future home reno project so I decided that I want to open a second savings account at EQ Bank.

Why Would I Want More than One Savings Account at EQ Bank?

I’m quite capable of keeping all of my money in one account and remembering how much Is my savings for my next new car, how much is for our hoped-for home improvement reno, and how much is my child’s money from their last birthday. It’s nice, though, to see the amounts separately on the screen by putting them into “separate” savings accounts. EQ Bank lets me do this.

I will try to find out the maximum number of accounts one person is allowed to have later. For now, I just want to create two. UPDATE 2016 02 19: MoneyWeHave says the number is unlimited. I have not confirmed that yet with EQ Bank itself.

Update: 2018 02 14 EQ Bank has advised customers via a secure email that in the future, customers will be restricted to having 1 main account and up to 4 sub-accounts. If you already have more than 4 sub-accounts you can keep them open but you can’t create a new 5th account.

Adding A New Account at EQ Bank for General Personal Savings

Once you have a fully operational Savings Account at EQ Bank, you can open an additional account online.

  1. Sign in to your EQ Bank account.
  2. From the list on the left side of the screen, click on the box: Add a new account
  3. There is a Yes No slider button to answer the question: Apart from the account owner(s), will anyone else access or benefit from this account?
    I left the slider set to No.
  4. From the drop-down list, select your answer to the question: “How do you intend to use this account?”
    Select: Personal Savings.
  5. If desired you can type a name for the account in the text field: Account Nickname.
  6. There is a Yes No slider button to answer the question: “Is this account to save for a particular goal?”
    I left this at No.
  7. Click on the agreement link to read through the account agreement information.
  8. If you find the terms acceptable, click to check the box beside: I accept the account agreement.
  9. Click on the button: Open Account

Neat! It’s done. The new account is assigned a new number as well.

How to Open an Account for a Specific Savings Goal

Once you have a fully operational Savings Account at EQ Bank, you can open an additional account online for any specific savings goal you have such as for a new car.

  1. Sign in to your EQ Bank account.
  2. From the list on the left side of the screen, click on the box: Add a new account
  3. There is a Yes No slider button to answer the question: Apart from the account owner(s), will anyone else access or benefit from this account?
    I left the slider set to No.
  4. From the drop-down list, select your answer to the question: “How do you intend to use this account?”
    I selected: Saving for a Specific Goal.
  5. If desired, type a name in the Goal description field.
    I typed: new tile
  6. There is a Yes No slider button to answer the question: “Is this account to save for a particular goal?”
    I clicked to slide it to Yes.
  7. If desired, type in a number in the text box: Goal amount.
  8. If desired, select from the calendar a date for the Goal date.
  9. Click on the agreement link to read through the account agreement information.
  10. If you find the terms acceptable, click to check the box beside: I accept the account agreement.
  11. Click on the button: Open Account

Can You Deposit Money Directly Into One of Your Accounts Using the Photo App?

Next, I wondered if I could make a deposit directly into one of my new accounts or if I needed to make the deposit into my first account and then move it.

I wrote a cheque to deposit into the second account.

Then, I opened the EQ Bank app on a device.

When I used the mobile deposit part of the app, I was asked to select which account to deposit the cheque into. I successfully selected the new account I had created for saving for the home reno.

So yes, you can deposit a cheque directly into one of the various savings accounts you have set up.

The cheque was successfully deposited and the balance on that account was increased by the cheque amount. Now I just have to wait 8 business days to see if the cheque clears properly and the amount is no longer “on hold.”

UPDATE 2016 02 19: The cheque cleared my “Big Bank” chequing account successfully the second business day after I submitted the cheque to EQ Bank. As of the fourth business day since I deposited the cheque at EQ Bank the funds are still on hold but they appear to have been earning interest daily since I deposited the cheque.

So far, so good! I hope this continues to work reliably.

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Are you one of the hundreds of people opening an account at EQ Bank to take advantage of the 3% interest rate available right now in February 2016? Please share your experiences so far with a comment.

What’s New for Tax Time for Your 2015 Return Due April 2016 If You Have Children?

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It’s that most horrible time of year again: tax time. I got my forms in the mail and took a peek at the T1-General Guide. I don’t usually look at car accidents but somehow I can’t help but look at the tax guide once I see it sitting on the table….Here’s what I found that’s new for a 2015 tax return for filers who have children.

Why Did I Get a RC62 Universal Child Care Benefit Statement in the Mail?

If your children were 6 or older but younger than 18 you may have received payments last year of the revised Universal Child Care Benefit.  It may have been quite a while since you last received any UCCB and you may have forgotten that it is taxable. Or at $60/month per eligible child aged 6-17, you might not even have noticed the money landing in your account.

Now, unfortunately, since the election is long past, we have to pay the taxes on that money.

That’s right, they didn’t withhold any taxes at source but the “benefit” is taxable income in the hands of the lower-earning parent.

So I will get to pay back about half of what we received.

There is also no longer any non-refundable tax credit for having a child of any age.

You report the amount you received, which is reported in Box 10 of your RC62, on line 117 of your return if you are the lower-net-income spouse or common-law partner.

What Happened to My Federal Non-refundable Tax Credit for My Children?

You used to claim $2 255 per child of the appropriate age on the Federal Tax Schedule 1 form on line 367. (By the time you finished the math, it was only 15% of that amount, or $338.25 per child.) If you are looking for it on the 2015 schedule, you won’t find it.

The problem with the non-refundable credit was that if a family was really low income, they weren’t paying any tax so they could not apply the credit to save any money.

Starting in 2015, the credit has been removed and instead all families get a taxable Universal Child Care Benefit. If the family is really low income, they will not have to pay any tax on this benefit and therefore it will help them. If a family has a moderate or high income, they will have to pay back some or a lot of this benefit both as federal income tax and as provincial income tax.

If your income was $75 000 a year before the $720 a year benefit for your one 7-year-old child, you will probably only get a benefit of $483 after tax in Ontario, based on using the Ernst and Young 2015 online personal tax calculator.

That’s about $145 more than the old non-refundable tax credit gave you. But it’s a lot less than the $720 that the advertisements were bleating about before the election!

If your income was $200 000  a year before the $720 a year benefit for your one 7-year-old child, you will probably only get a benefit of $346 after tax in Ontario, based on using the Ernst and Young 2015 online personal tax calculator. That’s very close to the old $338.25 per child that the non-refundable tax credit covered.

New Tax Form: The T4-A(P) for the CPP Children’s or Child’s Benefit

Many taxpayers have been dismayed to open envelopes this month and find a new tax slip: a T4-A(P) for their child or children’s benefit received from the CPP because one of the child’s parent’s has died. In previous years the government did not automatically send out this slip.

You can read what needs to be done with the slip by the parent, or child, over on Helpful Crooks.

Stay tuned for more exciting tax news!

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Does your mail box suddenly start overflowing around this time of year with tax slips? Did you get any new ones this year? Please share your experiences with a comment.