Short Takes: Mandatory RRIF Withdrawals, New Mortgage Qualification Rules, and more

I had only one post during this holiday-shortened week:

Dividends More Stable Than Capital Gains

Here are my short takes and some weekend reading:

Dan Bortolotti has a very sensible take on mandatory RRIF withdrawals.

Canadian Mortgage Trends reports the details of new debt-ratio rules to qualify for insured mortgages. What amazes me about these rules is how deep a debt hole you can dig for yourself even if you stay within the new bounds.

The Blunt Bean Counter announced that he is taking the summer off from blogging, but couldn’t resist helping us with his take on the new CRA Revised T1135 Foreign Income Verification Form.

Where Does All My Money Go? interviews Jonathan Chevreau in a podcast about financial independence and retirement. You can’t retire comfortably without financial independence, but you can achieve financial independence without having to retire.

Retire Happy Blog explains the difference between withholding taxes and income taxes. Focusing just on withholding taxes can be short-sighted.

Big Cajun Man isn’t too impressed with a funeral home that tried to charge $500 to dig a small hole to bury ashes.

Million Dollar Journey explains the Capital Gains Refund Mechanism (CGRM) that shifts capital gains in a mutual fund to investors who sell their mutual fund units and helps defer capital gains taxes for investors who remain in the fund. The guest writer begins this article expressing amazement at how much DIY investors pay in capital gains taxes compared to mutual fund investors. Perhaps another reason for this difference is that so much of what would have been capital gains in mutual funds gets siphoned off in fund fees.