What's New?

Find out what is new in the latest versions of the spreadsheet. Please note that new versions of the spreadsheet come with the advanced worksheets hidden by default. Follow the instructions in the Upgrading section on the Start Here worksheet to import your data and use the Simple/Advanced menu to show and hide the advanced worksheets.

V26.1

All federal, provincial and territorial tax brackets have been updated with the indexation factors provided by each jurisdiction. Some amounts were not available at release time and were estimated, specifically:

• • Non-refundable tax credits

  • CPP maximum benefit and CPP flat rate (used in CPP survivor benefit calculations

  • Quebec Parental Insurance Plan (QPIP) rates

  • LIF maximum withdrawal rates (2025 rates continue to apply)

New Features

User Interface

• Added a menu bar with Simple and Advanced modes to simplify the interface.

• Added Zoom buttons to the Dashboard charts.

• Added Cash Wedge worksheet.

• Added user notes to the Data Entry, Dashboard and Advanced worksheets. These are preserved on export/import.

Projection Testing

• Added Total Return Test, Inflation Test and Longevity Test(s) to Stress Test (now named "Account Withdrawal Test").

• Run all tests when Test button is clicked and show the results together in a popup.

• Added Estate Tax to Projection Summary.

Taxes

• Allow TFSA accounts to be disabled for individuals. For tax reasons some non-Canadian citizens should not have TFSA accounts.

• Added the ability for users to set the RRIF conversion age.

• Allow those not already receiving CPP to specify a start age between birthdays.

• Added support for the Disability Tax Credit.

• Transfer unlocked LIRA amounts to RRIF (pRRIF) for MB and SK.

• Handle some additional cases where creating a RIF to claim the pension tax credit is not necessary.

Other

• Added support for Other Real Estate properties purchased in the future.

• Allow the user to specify a custom inflation rate for income from rental properties.

• Allow the mortgage payment to be changed in downsize/upsize events.

• Added support for license keys.

• Disabled Import and Export operations when in Trial mode.

Improvements/Clarifications

Optimization

• Retain the contribution and withdrawal strategies set by the user when running the basic optimizer.

• Increased number of iterations when maximizing budget and donations in order to obtain a better result in certain cases.

• Disable tax optimizations for a single person. No effect on calculations but avoids confusion.

• Calculate Retirement Age(s), Budget and Donations options when optimizing projection.

• Round to one decimal place in donations maximizer.

Calculation

• Force repayment of underwater portion of principal residence mortgage when downsizing/upsizing.

• Allow a user to specify how an upsize of their principal residence is funded, either with a mortgage or investments.

• Handle the case where no payments are made on income/recreational property mortgages.

• Handle the case where an income/recreational property is underwater with respect to its mortgage when sold.

User Interface

• Restructure Projection Summary and Optimize & Test sections on Dashboard.

• Hide chart help buttons when optimizing.

• Moved optimize stop button to above progress bar.

• Clear optimizer progress and optimizer message when contents of spreadsheet change as they are out of date.

• Move Hints and Warnings below charts.

• Move complete list of Hints and Warnings to separate "H and W" worksheet.

• Added Hints and Warnings to the Snapshot.

• Added clarifying comments to the Income items in the Snapshot.

• Move Real Estate cash flow before account activity in Cashflow chart.

• Split Home and other Real Estate expenses on the Cashflow chart.

• Improve readability of Start Here worksheet by delineating sections.

• Reorder Sources and Uses of Cash in Snapshot worksheet. Split Tax Due and Refund and Real Estate into Uses and Sources.

• Reduced the size of the Help buttons.

Data Entry

• Allow users to specify the year and month when they retire.

• Allow users to specify the age and month when they start CPP and OAS.

• Added warnings when return rates are missing from accounts in the Data Entry worksheet.

• Warn when a mortgage exists but no interest rate or payment are specified.

• Use data validation to ensure percentages in Other Real Estate do not exceed 100%.

• Clarify that Other Real Estate property ownership is for each person.

• Added explanatory note on the Data Entry Worksheet about employment income after retirement.

• Fixed formatting of interest rate for Other Real Estate properties 3 and 5. Was showing in exponential form.

• Relaxed the age restriction for the CPP start age to allow for those receiving the disability pension. The spreadsheet does not currently handle the disability amount change at age 65.

Renaming

• Move LIRA funds to LIF before unlocking and correct terminology. No effect on projection.

• Renamed Step 3 from "Optimizers" to "Optimize & Test".

• Renamed "Age at Death" to "Lifespan (years)".

• Renamed "Account Balances" to "Accounts" and "Net Estate Value" to "Estate".

• Changed wording of Downsize option to reflect that it can be used for Upsizing also.

Accounts and Taxes

• Remove unlock hint when LIF jurisdiction does not permit unlocking.

• Improved calculations for Net Worth equalization between spouses.

• Limit non-registered fund deposits to a spouse's account  when necessary to avoid income attribution.

• Clarify hint that LIRA must be converted at the start of the year (to ensure full maximum withdrawal amount is available).

• Remove income taxes from expenses for the purpose of the emergency fund calculation to avoid large swings in emergency fund amounts.

Bug Fixes

• Handled the case where a person is already retired in retire early maximizer.

• Fixed overdraft repayment to avoid overpayment.

• Fixed bug where pensions or annuities start no later than age 65 despite the age entered or retirement age.

• Fixed bug where Other Assets and Other ACB were being allocated to the wrong spouse in the last year of the projection.

• Fixed calculation of the Pension Income Amount for the tax credit when pension splitting is enabled and one spouse is younger than the other.

• Fixed pension calculations for Quebec Schedule B - Tax Relief Measures.

• Fixed calculation of Ontario marginal rate when surtax applies. Display only, does not affect projection calculations.

• Limit mortgage to 80% of residence value on downsize/upsize to handle underwater mortgages.

• Expire charitable donations properly when there are multiple consecutive years of unclaimed donations.

• Apply any unused charitable donations when calculating estate tax.

• Forced date format in export files to yyyy-mm-dd. Warn if an ambiguous date format is found in an import file. Affects some Mac users.

• Enable iterative calculations when document is opened to avoid circular reference warnings on some Macs.

• If a LIRA unlock age was not specified for person 2, person 1's retirement age was being used.

• Allow CPP/QPP sharing as early as age 60 when one spouse has not contributed to CPP/QPP.

• Fixed bug in CPP survivor calculation. Occurs when deceased spouse was receiving close to the maximum and survivor started CPP late.

V25.6

Version 25.6 of the spreadsheet was provided to a few users but was never officially released. It has been superseded by V26.0.

New Features

• Allow CPP and OAS to start between birthdays on the Dashboard.

• Added a "Total Return Adjustment" to the Dashboard which applies to all accounts.

• Added None as an RRSP contribution strategy. Reordered contribution and withdrawal strategies by complexity.

• Added two more other real estate properties for a total of five.

• Ensure all tax tables are current (updated PE).

Improvements/Clarifications

• In the "Downsize" section, move "New Annual Budget" underneath "Year". Allow budget to be blank (no change to budget).

• Relocate life insurance overrides to the far right of the 1 Advanced and 2 Advanced worksheets.

• Fine tuned the optimization parameters and hints to achieve more consistent results.

• Clarified in Annual Budget and Emergency Fund descriptions that "taxes" mean "income taxes"

• Clarified sources of Pension income (CPP, OAS, DB) and Reg Ret Funds (RRSP, RRIF, LIF) on Snapshot worksheet.

• Renamed "Current Year Adjustment" to "Current Year Cash Adjustment" on Dashboard.

• Clarified some popup comments based on questions received from users. Added some popup comments in the Snapshot worksheet.

Bug Fixes

• <none>

V25.5

New Features

• Added low and no interest loans which are paid off according to a fixed payment schedule.

• Added tax deductible investment loans.

• Added hints and warnings for RRIF withdrawals and RRSP income attribution.

• Ensure all tax tables are current (updated MB).

Improvements/Clarifications

• Renamed Basic Optimizers to simply Optimizers.

• Improved Smooth Taxes contribution and withdrawal strategies to take into account basic tax deductions and the OAS clawback.

• Clarify that rates of return must be entered for all accounts which may be created by the spreadsheet.

• Disable cut and paste operation to avoid having users break formulas by accident.

• Allow the principal residence mortgage payment to have cents.

• Minor wording clarifications around expected long term annual returns in the Data Entry worksheet.

• Clarify that the Snapshot worksheet must be checked for actual RRSP contribution and registered retirement fund withdrawal amounts.

• Don't allow net income and taxable income to be negative.

• Add descriptions to the DB Pension so it can also be used for an annuity.

• Allow first year salary and deductions to be overridden. Needed in the case that the person retires in the first year.

• Added additional information to the popup that describes the Estate optimizer.

• Clarify that current OAS amount entered on the Data Entry worksheet is the full amount before the OAS clawback.

• Remove the word "Discretionary" from Retirement Fund Withdrawals as it is now the entire amount, not just the discretionary portion.

Bug Fixes

• Transfer LIRA and LIF funds to spouse's RIF on death, not non-registered account. This does not account for the maximum withdrawal limit on transferred federal LIRA/LIFs.

• On Excel for Mac, require the user to create an empty text file when exporting data to work around Mac OS sandbox limitations.

V25.4

Version 25.4 of the spreadsheet was provided to a few users but was never officially released. It has been superseded by V25.5.

New Features

• Update maximum LIF withdrawal percentages for 2025.

• Defer capital gains tax changes (inclusion rate = 2/3 over $250,000) until 2026.

• Apply the spouse's age tax strategy to LIF minimum withdrawals (was previously RIF only).

• Ensure all tax tables are current (updated AB).

Improvements/Clarifications

• Use the COLA contribution and withdrawal strategies in the Hybrid methods. These have proven to be better than the Smooth Taxes strategy for most user data sets.

• Clarified non-registered Canadian Eligible Dividend and Interest & Foreign Dividends income lines on Snapshot.

• Allow optimizers to calculate future RRSP contributions when current contribution room is zero.

• Added explanatory note on the Data Entry worksheet about relative percentages of each asset class in the non-registered accounts.

• Add Inflation Multiplier column to advanced user worksheets to make calculating future values easier.

Bug Fixes

• The LIRA/LIF jurisdiction will Export/Import properly for future releases. A warning message is shown asking the user to check their jurisdiction.

• Handle the case in the Snapshot Income and Expense columns where RRSP contributions and retirement fund withdrawals happen concurrently. This is a display issue only and does not affect the spreadsheet calculations.

V25.3

The way that amounts and rates of return are entered for non-registered accounts on the Data Entry worksheet have been simplified. You will need to re-enter your data for these accounts.

New Features

• Simplified rate entry for nonregistered accounts in the Data Entry worksheet.

Improvements/Clarifications

• Break out RRSP, RRIF, LIRA and LIF accounts in the Snapshot and add additional detail to these accounts. Combine all registered retirement accounts in the Dashboard charts. 

• Allow for the pension amount tax credit in the Smooth Taxes and Hybrid withdrawal methods.

• Retirement Fund Withdrawal Override is now the total amount of the withdrawal including required minimums. You cannot withdraw less than the minimum required.

• Transfer LIRAs and LIFs to the spouse's non-registered account as opposed to their RRSP or RRIF when they are unlocked due to death. This follows the spreadsheet's policy of moving funds to the place of most flexibility when it makes sense from a tax perspective.

• Add a LIRA unlock hint in the Dashboard.

• Don't exchange spousal RRSP contributions in the same year.

• Don't move funds to a RRIF to claim pension income tax credit if there is already sufficient pension income or split pension income.

• On the Dashboard, clarify what is included in expenses for the purpose of calculating the emergency fund.

Bug Fixes

• Show Group RRSP contributions in the Snapshot worksheet.

• Show LIRA/LIF to RRSP/RRIF unlock transfers correctly in the Snapshot worksheet.

• Show one-time expenses correctly in the Snapshot worksheet.

• Generate the current value of final year real estate using the real estate inflation rate instead of the general inflation rate.

• Include the current year's reconciliation in estate tax, not the previous year's reconciliation.

• Force an update of the provincial tax tables when the inflation rate is changed.

• Include RRIF funds in the As Needed and Last Resort retirement fund withdrawal strategies.

V25.2

RRSP and RRIF and LIRA and LIF accounts have been split. If you have these accounts, check the Data Entry worksheet to ensure that the amounts and rates of return are correct.

New Features

Taxation

• All of the tax calculations have been updated for 2025 with the latest information known when the Spreadsheet was released.

• An NR (non-resident) option was added to the Province/Territory popup menu in the Data Entry worksheet. It omits provincial tax calculations.

• Prepaid tax and reconciliations have been implemented to better match actual cashflow.

Projection Summary

• The amounts in the Projection Summary can now be shown in current or future year dollars. Select current or future from the popup menu. Current dollars are also known as Net Present Value or NPV.

• The colour contrast in the Projection Summary has been improved.

Optimization

• The Retirement Age(s), Budget and Donations optimizers can now target a residual amount in the Account Balances in the Final Year. Specify an amount in the Target Account Balance cell in the Basic Optimizers section.

• Added a stress test to the Basic Optimizers via a Test button.

• Added an option to hide the charts while optimizing (now the default) to speed up the optimizer. Also charts were not updating in Excel 365.

• Added a progress indicator which is visible when the charts are hidden.

• The Smooth Taxes and Hybrid Contribution and Withdrawal Strategies now use an income level as their Target amount to give more reliable projections when the early years of employment and retirement differ from the norm. You will need to re-run your optimizations.

Accounts

• RRSP and RRIFs have been split into separate accounts.

• LIRA and LIFs have been split into separate accounts.

• Added the ability to override the LIRA unlock age determined by the spreadsheet.

• Improved the emergency fund calculations or people with fluctuating large tax bills.

• Change the Emergency Fund amount from number of years to months.

Other

• Added better support for people already receiving CPP/QPP and OAS. Added current monthly CPP and OAS amounts in data entry worksheet.

• Blank out appropriate fields in Dashboard when people are receiving CPP/QPP or OAS and retirement fund contributions when retired.

• Added the ability to override the DB pension start age determined by the spreadsheet. Defaults to the retirement age.

• Improved the pension splitting calculation.

• Added additional validation to user entered values in the Dashboard.

Improvements/Clarifications

• Changed the positive projection status from Healthy to Funded.

• Renamed the Income Tax Payable cells on the Data Entry worksheet to Estimated Tax to be Withheld This Year to better reflect their purpose.

• Added additional instruction around calculation of rates for non-registered accounts.

Bug Fixes

• Fixed a bug in the 2075 capital gains estate tax calculation, other years calculated the tax for the following year

• DB pensions are now split starting at age 55 instead of 65.

• The flat rate portion is no longer included in a CPP survivor's pension if the deceased was not entitled to CPP.

• Various fixes to the CPP survivor benefit calculation.

• Stop employment calculations if a person dies while still employed.

• Fixed the estate calculation when the first spouse dies. The spreadsheet was not accounting for account transfers before calculating the tax.

• Fixed an error in the cashflow account allocation which assumed only one person was alive when balancing net worth.

• Calculate Estate Tax as of year end as opposed to the start of the year.

• Stop employer and employee group RRSP contributions at age 71 if employee works past that age.