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By Allan Norman, MSc, CFP, CIM on May 28, 2025
Estimated reading time: 5 minutes

By Allan Norman, MSc, CFP, CIM on May 28, 2025
Estimated reading time: 5 minutes

The benefits of depleting savings to avoid estate taxes depends on many variables. But if you live a decade or more, you likely want your money to grow.

My wife is currently drawing $24,000 per year from her RRIF, which has a balance of $510,000. She is also receiving OAS, CPP and a work pension of $22,000. She is 67.

My question is if it would be prudent to start making larger withdrawals to try and reduce the tax that the estate will pay. I know the RRIF would come to me if something were to happen (God forbid), but it would still present the same problem.

She is under the threshold for any OAS clawback, and we split pension income as my pension and CPP is $84,000.

I know that any larger withdrawals will impact her OAS but I’m concerned with the large RRIF.

—Randall

Hi, Randall. You are asking a question best answered by a collaborative planner using computer simulation. Yours is a hyper-complex problem. And for you to confidently decide what to do based on my advice, you need some experience and knowledge about the variables involved. Without knowledge and experience, you’re putting a lot of trust in the person giving advice.

Fortunately, when working collaboratively and using computer simulation, planners share their knowledge and interpret the results of computer simulation for you. At the same time, computer simulation gives you experience and........

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