Supporting Seniors
- Our Conservative Government recognizes that Canada’s seniors have helped build our country.
- We are providing extra support for seniors across Canada with lower taxes, solid pensions, and strong health care.
- Our Government’s low tax plan has helped remove over 380,000 seniors from the tax rolls.
- The Liberals and NDP continue their opposition to increasing the Tax-Free Savings Account that provides the greatest benefits to seniors, including low-income seniors.
- We want to ensure that seniors have choice and flexibility in how they save and spend for their retirement.
- Economic Action Plan 2015 continues our record of strong support of seniors, with measures including:
- Increasing the Tax-Free Savings Account (TFSA) Annual Contribution Limit to help make it easier for Canadians to save without affecting eligibility for federal income-tested benefits such as Old Age Security or Guaranteed Income Supplement benefits.
- Reducing the Minimum Withdrawal Factors for Registered Retirement Income Funds (RRIFs) to allow seniors the choice to preserve more of their retirement savings, which will better support their retirement income needs. With this change, a senior citizen at 85 would be able to keep one third more of their money in RRIFs.
- Introducing a new Home Accessibility Tax Credit for seniors and persons with disabilities to facilitate healthy and accessible homes, which promote mobility and functionality within.
- Establishing the Canadian Centre for Aging and Brain Health Innovation, which will discover new tools to help seniors with ageing and brain-related issues.
- Supporting Canadians caring for gravely ill and dying Family members by extending the Employment Insurance Compassionate Care Benefits from 6 weeks to over 6 months (26 weeks).
- These measures build on our Government’s record of support for seniors thus far, which includes:
- Introducing pension income splitting.
- Increasing the Age Credit amount by $2,000.
- Doubling the Pension Income Credit to $2,000.
- Enhancing the New Horizons for Seniors Program by increasing funding by an additional $5 million per year.
- Expanding the Targeted Initiative for Older Workers by investing $75 million to help unemployed older workers put their talents and experience back to work.
- Increasing the amount that Guaranteed Income Supplement (GIS) recipients can earn through employment without any reduction in GIS benefits (from $500 to $3,500). A single pensioner, for example, earning $3,500 or more, will now be able to keep up to an additional $1,500 in annual GIS benefits.
- Increasing the age limit for RRSP-to-RRIF conversion to 71 from 69.
- Establishing the landmark Tax Free Savings Account (TFSA). This has been particularly beneficial for seniors, as neither income earned in a TFSA nor withdrawals from a TFSA affect their federal income-tested benefits and credits, such as the GIS.
- Introducing the largest GIS increase in over 25 years, which gave eligible low-income seniors additional annual benefits of up to $600 for single seniors and $840 for couples – helping more than 680,000 seniors across Canada.
