Tag Archives: Simplii Financial

Is My Money In Savings Accounts and GICs At Simplii Financial Protected by CDIC Insurance?

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Simplii Financial is the new name for what used to be called President’s Choice Financial. It’s also a somewhat new business and is owned and run by CIBC. Recently I read a question about what kind of CDIC insurance Simplii Financial offered on cash deposits and guaranteed investment certificates so I decided to check.

Be Careful Of the Insurance Maximums If You Have Money at CIBC and Money at Simplii Financial

First, deposits at Simplii Financial are insured by the Canada Deposit Insurance Corporation, CDIC.

HOWEVER, the limit of $100 000 we’re all so used to reading applies to any money you have in that type of account at both CIBC and Simplii Financial, because they are both insured under one policy.

For example,

we have

  • a joint CIBC chequing account
  • a joint Simplii Financial chequing account
  • a joint Simplii Financial savings account

We are only insured up to $100 000 deposited in total in those accounts. If we bought any regular GICs at CIBC or Simplii Financial, those would also be insured only if the total of the 3 bank accounts and all of the GICs was $100 000 or less.

Because CDIC treats your money the same if it’s at CIBC or at Simplii Financial, which is part of CIBC, you may want to make sure you understand the maximums and don’t exceed them if you bank with both institutions.

Are Tangerine and ScotiaBank Accounts Insured Together To One CDIC Maximum Also?

No.

I checked whether this was also the case with Tangerine. After all the Bank of Nova Scotia bought out Tangerine.

But no, they have separate CDIC insurance. So you can reach the $100 000 limit on, say a savings account at ScotiaBank and also reach the $100 000 limit on another savings account at Tangerine and you will be insured separately to the full amount on each of them.

We don’t bank with BNS so we never checked this before. I’m glad I learned about the limits on CIBC/Simplii Financial though. It’s unlikely I’d ever have more than $100 000 in the two banks but better to know now that find out the hard way later that we’re not fully insured!

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Do you keep money at both CIBC and Simplii Financial? Did you know you had to keep the totals across the 2 banks in the different categories under $100 000 each? Please share your experiences with a comment.

 

How Do I Get My 2017 T5 for my EQ Bank, Simplii Financial, and Tangerine Accounts?

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As January slides quickly down the melting ice bank towards February, it’s time for me to start gathering up our T5 slips to do our taxes. One of the drawbacks of having bank accounts at many financial institutions is I have to remember to get our tax slips from each—luckily we made so much interest from various promotions at these three banks they all issued us a T5 so we don’t need to add up our monthly interest income. Here’s how I got our T5s for our 2018 tax return from EQ Bank, Simplii Financial (formerly PC Financial) and Tangerine.

How to Print a T5 for a Tangerine Chequing or Savings Account

Although we earned enough interest from our Savings account to get a T5, we didn’t earn enough from our chequing account. So I thought I’d have to add up the interest month-by-month. I was wrong! Tangerine included the interest from our chequing account and our savings accounts all on the same T5.

  1. Sign in to your Tangerine accounts.
  2. Click on your name in the upper right side of the screen to see the drop-down menu list.
    Select Documents.
  3. On the Documents page, from the horizontal menu near the top, click on Tax Receipts.
    The most current tax year receipts will be displayed.
  4. If you want, you can change the year by selecting another year from the drop-down list.
  5. Click on the link, T5 – Interest earned
  6. Click on the link again T5 – Interest earned
  7. Your T5 will be a 2-sided document so you may want to print it using a 2-sided option if you have one.
    Print your T5.
  8. Click on the Done button.
  9. If you are finished banking, click on your name, then click on Log Out.
    For extra security, clear your browser history and cache and close your browser session.

How Do I Get a T5 for my US Dollar Savings Account at Tangerine?

If you have earned more than $50 in your savings and chequing accounts at Tangerine, the interest earned on your US dollar account will be included in your T5. If not, you will have to add up the payments yourself, and then use an approved conversion rate from the Bank of Canada to calculate the amount in Canadian dollars to report on your income tax return.

How Does Tangerine Convert My US Dollar Interest to Canadian Dollars for my Tax Slip, T5?

According to the Tangerine website in 2018 the interest “is converted to Canadian dollars at an average annual conversion rate set by the Bank of Canada.”

Luckily, since that’s what I do, too, I won’t have to re-calculate the interest.

How Do I Check How Much Interest I Earned Last Year On My Tangerine Account?

If you don’t get a T5, you still have to report the interest you earned on a bank account on your tax return. And even if you did get a T5, you may need to know how much interest you earned on a specific account if you have, say, two savings accounts and one of them you should claim and one your spouse should claim.

To check what an account earned:

  1. Sign in to your Tangerine accounts.
  2. Click on the name of the account you are interested in.
  3. There is a horizontal bar of links, click on the one called Account Details.
  4. Near the right side of the screen is a section called Interest Earned.
    You can get the total amount earned by that account from the row: Previous Year
  5. If you are finished banking, click on your name, then click on Log Out.
    For extra security, clear your browser history and cache and close your browser session.

Why Does My Tangerine T5 Report More Interest Than If I Add Up the Amounts from My Previous Years?

Watch out for one quirk: if you have a savings account, say a Vacation Savings account, that you close part way through the year, you may forget you have to add in the interest from that account also to get the total on your T5. The only way to double check the interest earned by a closed account is to look through your old monthly statements.

How to Get Your 2017 T5 Tax Slip from EQ Bank

  1. Sign in to your EQ Bank Accounts.
  2. From the horizontal list of links across the top, click on Accounts.
  3. Click on Tax Documents.
  4. Strangely, it does NOT default to showing me my most recent tax slip. Instead, I have to click on the drop-down list and choose 2017 – T5
  5. Click on the Generate Document button.
    It says you will get one T5 for the interest earned on all of your accounts.
  6. Click on the Print or save button.
  7. If you are finished banking, click on your name, and select Sign Out.
    For extra security, clear your browser history and cache and close your browser session.

How to Get Your 2017 T5 Tax Slip from Simplii Financial

Well, it seems CIBC has taken full control of PC Financial and re-named it Simplii Financial but a few things have not changed. So far, as at January 24, 2018, you can’t get your T5 for interest earned by your Simplii accounts online. I’ll have to wait for it to arrive via Canada Post.

I expect this will change either later this year or next, though. Mailing out forms usually costs banks more money than providing them online to be downloaded and printed by the customer.

So now I will have to gather up all of my tax slips and calculate how much interest my husband and I need to claim on our tax returns. The interest has to be paid by the person who owns the money so it’s not always straight forward for us. I’ll sort it out by April 30 though!

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Are you starting to hunt for your tax slips? Please share your successes with a comment.