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The Financial Post has just run my blog on an appeal to the Liberal administration by Catherine Swift of Working Canadians to keep annual contribution limits for Tax-Free Savings Accounts (TFSAs) at the $10,000 level they reached this summer.
As you’ll see by clicking through on the FP link below, the argument is based on the retirement-readiness disparity of the public and private sectors, a situation David Chilton alluded to in the Hub’s Monday report on his weekend speech to financial bloggers: Chilton to bloggers — Public-sector retirements in far better shape than private sector’s.
Click here for full FP blog: Cutting TFSA limit unfair when our tax dollars pay for gold-plated public pensions, citizens group charges.
The full press release can be found here.
In a telephone interview conducted after the above blog was posted, Swift — who works closely with Pension Ponzi author Bill Tufts — said the situation is “terrible” with billions of dollars of taxpayer money expended every year to prop up gold-plated public-sector pension plans. By the way, I highly recommend the book highlighted above in red: it clearly lays out the disparity that Swift, Chilton and I are complaining about.
Data doesn’t show TFSAs are a tool only for the rich
“The average teacher works 27 years and collects a pension for 33 years. It’s outrageous,” Swift told me. These public-sector pension plans were constructed back in the 1960s, when there were ten working teachers supporting one retiree. Today, the ratio is an even one to one.
“These people are making out like bandits. It’s a terrible inequity for the rest of us. And the data do not support the Liberals’ contention that the TFSA is a tool only for the rich. If you’re rich, these things are meaningless. This is the problem with Trudeau. He never really had to make a living. To the average Joe, this (TFSA limits) is pretty important.”
And the situation will only get worse as society continues to have gains in longevity, and will be exacerbated as the massive baby boom generation retires. This state of affairs is not just in Canada. (10,000 baby boomers turns 65 every single day).
Swift said the “horrible” proposed Ontario Retirement Pension Plan (ORPP) “won’t happen now. They will crank up the CPP with more forced savings. Canadians are better off investing on their own.”
Postscript
Comments about this blog are starting to pile up both here and at the Financial Post, under the story itself. I’m also getting email on this, one example below, name withheld for now:
EXCELLENT REBUTTAL TO THE LIBERAL PLAN TO REDUCE THE TFSA FROM $10,000.
