Zag bank | Financial Crooks

As tax-filing time approaches, I’ve started rounding up my tax slips including my T5s for our savings and chequing bank accounts with EQ, Oaken, PC Financial, Tangerine and Zag Bank.

Use Caution Saving Electronic (and Paper) Copies of Your Tax Slips Including T5s

Be sure to keep your electronic copies in a secured location—they have valuable information such as your name, address and SIN number which could be used for identity theft!

How to Get and Print Your T5 Tax Form for Your EQ Bank Savings Account

Sign in to your EQ Bank accounts.
From the drop-down list under the Accounts tab, click on: Tax documents
From the drop-down list under Select the tax document you want to generate, choose the T5 for the year of interest.
For example, I selected 2016 – T5 to complete my income tax return by April 2017.
Click on the Generate document button.
Wait a few seconds to a minute or two.
The T5 will be displayed on your screen.
Click on the Print or save button.
When you are finished, near the bottom of the screen, click on the Back to tax documents button.

Interesting, no where do I seem to get a choice to save the T5 to my hard drive!

According to their online chat, I can only save the T5 if I use Google Chrome. I have no intention of using that program, so I will just scan and save my hard copy printout.

How to Get Your T5 Tax Forms for Your Oaken Financial Bank Accounts

Oaken Financial mails out its tax forms. So you’ll have to check your letter mail for your T5s and other tax forms.

How to Get Your T5 Tax Forms for Your PC Financial Bank Accounts

President’s Choice Financial mails out its tax forms. So you’ll have to check your letter mail for your T5s and other tax forms.

How to Get and Print Your T5 Tax Forms for Your Tangerine Bank Accounts

Sign in to your Tangerine account/s.
From the list on the left side of the screen, select My documents.
Click on the link Tax receipts.
From the drop-down box, select the year for which you wish the documents.
It’s probably easiest to leave the selections “All account types” and “All receipts” so that you don’t miss a slip unless you are looking for something specific.
From the list of PDF files of receipts, click on the one you want to print or save first.
A popup window will let you choose to Open the PDF file or to save it.
If desired, select Open and then print the file; or
If desired, select Save and choose a destination to save the file. Be sure to keep your electronic copies in a secured location—they have valuable information such as your name, address and SIN number which could be used for identity theft!

NOTE: Tangerine combines the interest from your chequing and savings accounts onto a single T5 if the amount is $50 or more. You have to manually report any interest earned below $50 even if you did not receive a tax slip.

How to Get and Print Your T5 Tax Forms for Your Zag Bank Accounts

Sign in to your Zag Bank account/s.
Click on the Accounts tab.
Click on the Statements link.
From the Document Type: drop-down list, click on Year-End Tax Forms & Statements
From the Tax Year: drop-down list, select the year of interest.
From the Tax Forms: drop-down list, select T5, or just click on the View button.

Hmmm. I got an error message: The system is unavailable. Please try again later.
So no luck so far!

It’s probable that an error message is displayed because I had less than $50 of interest on my account and that there is no T5 for this account. In which case, I’ll have a LONG wait….

Aren’t Income Taxes Fun?

So now I’ve found the T5s for my bank accounts that earned more than $50 last year in interest, and I’ve added up the amounts I earned in interest for accounts that earned less than $50, I am one step closer to filing my income tax return for 2016. Oh joy!

Related Reading

How to Get Your RRSP Tax Slip for a Tangerine Account

Join In
Do you have a check list of all the T slips you need before you file your taxes? Have you ever missed a slip? Please share your tax stories with a comment.

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Once a teen starts working they are going to need a “real” bank account. Many large employers want to give pay by direct deposit. The student will likely also prefer to have a debit card for school trips rather than carry a large amount of cash for emergencies. And, if your teen leaves home to attend college or university, they may need to write cheques for rent or other fees. When one of my relatives recently turned 16, we helped him choose a bank to open a “real” chequing account and get their first debit card.

Students Should Not Have to Pay Fees to Handle Their Banking

I don’t think anyone should have to pay fees to bank but I especially don’t think students should have to pay someone for the privilege of depositing and withdrawing their own hard-earned money! Apparently, the major banks agree because many of them offer free bank accounts for full-time students. And smaller banks like Tangerine and PC Financial offer free bank accounts for everyone.

Why Teens Should NOT Open Their First Chequing Account at a Big Canadian Bank

I buy Crest toothpaste. I’ve switched flavours and styles several times over the years, trying to get one that doesn’t taste too badly and that offers the most types of protection for my teeth. I’ve never even tried Colgate or the other brands. Why? Because I started using Crest as a child and I’m loyal to the brand.

I don’t want my teenaged relative, or anyone else, to feel “loyal” to a bank. Canadian banks abuse customer loyalty: they offer less interest and charge more fees to their customers on an almost annual basis. At the same time, they offer incentives such as higher interest and lower fees to “new” customers which they won’t always match for existing customers even if the loyal customers call in and ask for a deal.

So while a teenager or full-time student can open a bank account with reasonable interest and no fees at almost any Canadian bank, I’m advising them not to open one at one of the Big Five Canadian banks (BMO, CIBC, RBC, Scotia or TD.) It’s too risky that they will decide to stay at that bank when they graduate: and then they will start getting zinged with annoying and expensive fees and earn low interest on any savings.

At Which Bank Did I Recommend Our Teen Student Relative Open Their Account?

I recommended our teenaged relative open his first chequing account at Tangerine.

The two banks we considered were

PC Financial
Tangerine

We didn’t consider

because they don’t offer a full-featured no-fee chequing account with a debit card and ABM access.

PC Financial’s No Fee Chequing account and Tangerine’s Chequing Account do offer:

a debit card
cheques
free debit payments
free cheque payments (although you have buy the paper cheques for Tangerine and don’t for PC Financial)
a modest interest rate paid on chequing account balances
online banking, including with an App
the ability to set up automatic payments, for free
the ability to receive payroll deposits, for free

Why Did We Pick Tangerine vs PC Financial for a First Chequing Account?

There were a variety of reasons why Tangerine fit the customer’s needs better:

Tangerine currently has an offer (at least until September 2016 and probably indefinitely) that gives a customer opening their first account ever with Tangerine or ING Direct, a $50 bonus if they open an account and deposit $100 and if they enter an Orange Key from someone already banking with Tangerine.
PC Financial does not offer any cash for opening a new account.
Tangerine does not require the new customer to already have a chequing account. You can get your id verified and your signature set on the file at Canada Post locations. You can verify your id and set up your signature for PC Financial at their in store pavilions but there is no store near where my relative lives.
The PC Financial chequing account is better than Tangerine’s if you write many paper cheques because the cheques themselves are free to order. (You do get 50 free paper cheques from Tangerine when you open an account, but after they are used up you have to buy them.)
Our relative doesn’t have to write any cheques yet, so that wasn’t an incentive.
Tangerine offers free email money transfers. If the person receiving the money is a Tangerine it’s very fast to receive and deposit the money. Many of this relative’s friends and family bank with Tangerine so this was a valuable option.
The student will also be opening a savings account to hold “back-up money” for regular spending. That will keep the money at a slightly higher daily interest savings rate until it’s needed than leaving it in the chequing account.
Transfers from Savings to Chequing accounts at Tangerine take place instantly. Transfers from savings to chequing at PC Financial are delayed at least one business day. That makes Tangerine way more attractive.
The Tangerine website is clearer and easier to use than the PC Financial website.

Why Only Open an Account at Tangerine?

Actually there is no reason to only open one account. In time, I expect my relative to open accounts at other institutions.

Why Open Bank Accounts at Several Different Banks or Financial Institutions?

In the near future, I will be encouraging this relative to start playing the “interest rate” game. Electronic banking makes it very, very easy to move cash savings including those for education or vacations to maximize the interest earned.

When my relative has a $1000 or so saved up, I’ll be suggesting he check the rates for savings accounts at

Tangerine
PC Financial
Oaken Financial
EQ Bank

And others to see what’s on offer.

If there is a good rate, it will probably be worth it to open a savings account and move the longer term savings money into it. And when a better rate is offered somewhere else, move it again. It only takes a few minutes of typing and sometimes a letter to get it going.

For now, though, our relative is happy to have a debit card and a chequing account to get their pay. I’m happy they are not paying any fees and are learning that it shouldn’t cost them any money to save their money safely in a bank.