Top Ten List – Revised

Vote for your own top ten list here!

After much research, discussion and deliberation, I completed my submission of recommendation to improve the Registered Disability Savings Plan.  Obviously with approximately $450 million in 50,000 plans, the RDSP must be looked at as stunning success.  Few social programs can claim such immediate impact.

At the same time, with an estimated 500,000 who should qualify, we must ask, “Why aren’t more people using RDSPs to save for their future?”  Kudos to Minister Flaherty not only for championing the plan but also acknowledging that it can be improved.

The discussion is drawing to a close as officials in Finance Canada sift through submissions and decide how to make the RDSP more useful for Canadians with disabilities.  Below is my ranked “Top 10” list of recommendations – revised.

1. Reduce the holdback amount to five years

2. Permit emergency withdrawals without repayment of the holdback amount

3. Do not collapse the RDSPs of people who lose their eligibility for the disability tax credit

4. Implement a federal solution to allow access to people don’t have contractual capacity

5. Permit the life expectancy in the LDAP formula to be determined a physician

6. Make a beneficiary’s primary residence an RDSP investment option

7. Permit the rollover of beneficiary’s RRSPs to RDSPs

8. Enable people with progressive diseases to qualify for RDSPs before they qualify for the DTC

9. Allow child welfare authorities to act as account holder of RDSPs until the beneficiary is 25 years

10. Allow financial institutions to charge management fees on the holdback amount.

You can agree or disagree by voting  for your own top ten list here.

You can see the results after you vote.

I will publish the final results in two weeks (January 20^th).