Add/Edit Income

This form captures present and planned income sources.

Note that OAS, CPP/QPP, and U.S. Social Security pensions are not to be included here as they will recalculated for you, or if you are collecting any of these pensions the amount you are currently receiving will be entered in the Additional information screens under the TIME MACHINE tab.

Any CPP/QPP disability income, however, should be added. Also do not record withdrawals from your accounts or any investment income here, as it will be calculated separately.

You should add any and all taxable income earned by your dependents and identify them as the income owner.

If you started with the Simple Retirement Calculator on your first login, you may already have entered a pre-retirement income (if you're not already retired), and a post-retirement income. Make sure these incomes are set to the correct type. You can edit the income and select the correct type from the drop-down menu. If you have rental income, make sure to add your properties in REAL-ESTATE first. If you income from a CCPC make sure the CCPC is added in your PROFILE first.

The start date can be set as the last day of the previous year if the income existed before the present year. For planned incomes, you can set the start date in the future.

The end date can be set into the far future (or not entered) if the income will only end in the case of passing (a pension, for example).

The yearly income amount should be entered as gross income, before taxes and deductions, For incomes that start in the future, you can enter the amount in today's dollars or in future dollars. If entered in today's dollars, the TIME MACHINE will grow the amount with inflation up to the start date automatically. If entered in future dollars, the amount entered will be used.

Please annualize the income, even if it is received for less than a year. For example, if you receive $1000/month for only 3 months, enter that as $12,000/year with start and end dates 3 months apart. When it comes to a one-time source of income (e.g. an inheritance), the lump sum (in today's dollars or future dollars) can be recorded with the same day start and end date.

You can set how the INCOME grows in time. We ask if the INCOME is indexed, a multiplier (default is 1), and an addend rate (default is 0% and can be negative). If you check "Index to inflation", the INCOME will grow with inflation multiplied by the multiplier, plus the specified addend rate. Essentially: growth rate = inflation × multiplier + addend. If not set to be indexed with inflation, you can still set an alternate rate to grow it. In that case: growth rate = addend. This could be useful if you think you will get raises above inflation after the start date set (or alternatively below inflation if a negative addend and/or multiplier below 1). It is particularly useful for a pension that is, for example, indexed to 50% of the inflation rate (in that case the multiplier is 0.5). Note that pensions and annuities may have additional criteria for how they are indexed, usually involving 'if' statements, for example: "the pension is indexed to inflation, minus 1% if inflation is greater than 3%". We don't consider such if statements.

If you are currently taking, or are planning on taking, parental leave(s) from your employment or self-employment, check the relevant box. You will then be prompted to specify the dates of your leave. WARNING: If you have already recorded your leave(s) from a particular source of income, the box will be checked when you go to edit said income. If you uncheck the box, all previously recorded dates of leave from that income will be deleted. Ignore the parental leave checkbox if the source of income is not employment or self-employment.

If you record any Pension income, Rental income, Annuity income or any Other income, you will be prompted to provide additional information.

Most income is taxable, but some "Other Incomes" might not be. While spousal support income is taxable, for example, child support income is not. Therefore, these 2 sources of income should be entered separately.

Pensions: If you are contributing to a defined benefit pension, please enter a salary income first.

If you have a bridge benefit for your defined benefit pension, it should be entered separately.

Your latest pension statement should tell you how much you will get for your defined benefit pension plan at specific retirement dates. Make sure you match the corresponding amount for the income start date. You may have to ask your pension administrator for the amounts if you plan on different spousal benefits than the default for your pension (usually 60%).

Annuities:

We support some simple forms of registered annuities, prescribed annuities, and structured settlement annuities.

If you bought an annuity with the commuted value of a defined benefit pension plan you should enter it in INCOMES as a defined benefit pension plan rather than an annuity, because those "copy-cat" annuities are required to offer the same benefits as the pension they replace.

The owner of the income is the annuitant. If the owner is Joint, then the annuity will be "Joint and last-survivor".

You can enter annuities you have already bought, and whose payments have already started, and you can enter annuities you are considering buying in the future with funds from an account. For the latter case you can set annuity payments to begin in the future. You can stagger planned annuity purchases by entering several future annuity incomes all drawing from the same account. The amount will be determined by the payout rate you will enter on the next screen, so you can leave it to zero here.

The end date entered for the income will determine the end of the term of the annuity. For a life annuity, just enter a date far in the future (the default is 100 years from today).