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Deduct Mortgage Interest on your Income Tax
By Spike
from the now that I have your attention department, Section News
Posted on Wed Sep 13, 2006 at 07:44:10 PM PST
At the risk of posting a link to yet another scam purporting to show Canadians how they can write off heir mortgage interest on their income tax, i've been all over a bunch of articles on the Smith Manoeuver in the last few days and I can't find any fault with it.


I started a spreadsheet to see how things would go on a per-payment basis... It appears that if you can consistently find investment returns that are greater than your mortgage interest rate, you can end up with a sizeable chunk of extra cash when your mortgage is paid off. And you can pay it off a few years earlier (assuming a 25 year mortgage).

There are a number of things working together in this system, but all appear to be kosher with CCRA. Anyone else heard of it, or looked into it before?
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Deduct Mortgage Interest on your Income Tax | 2 comments (2 topical)
So... (none / 0) (#1)
by Eric on Thu Sep 14, 2006 at 04:26:46 PM PST

I decided to look like an idiot and asked my parents about this - my accountant father says indeed, you can write off your interest payment and my banker mother says that readvanceable mortgages do work.

The major caveats are:
1) there may be fees associated with converting your mortgage to readvanceable.
2) the amount of principle per year you're talking about isn't terribly large and you still need to at least meet your mortgage interest rates to break even.

Having said all that, I'm tempted to go that way since we haven't signed our new mortgage documents yet, and getting my principle paid down back out and invested with my parents sounds like an awfully good idea.



A further caveat... (none / 0) (#2)
by Spike on Wed Sep 20, 2006 at 12:41:19 PM PST

Our mortgage is up for renewal in December, so this discussion is timely for us.  Sounds like it may be for you, too...

In making up the spreadsheet to analyze this, I added the situation whereby you do all of the investing within an RRSP.  So once a year you get to claim not only the interest payments on the investment (as a deduction), but you also get to claim the principal of the investments you make as an RRSP contribution, yielding a large tax return that can be applied to the principal of the mortgage.  This results in cutting your mortgage term by about 25-30%.

At that point, your "loan" balance is about 75% of your original mortgage, and your RRSP balance is about 125% of your original mortgage... But consider that you'll be taxed at your marginal rate if you withdraw enough to pay off that loan overnight.  Here's how the numbers (roughly) work for a $100K mortgage at 6%:

With all interest rates being equal (mortgage, loan, and investment), if the investment is done within an RRSP, the mortgage is done in about 7 years, with a loan balance around $75K, and an RRSP balance around $120K.  If the RRSP was cleaned out to pay the loan, it would leave around $10K in the RRSP.

If the investing is done outside the RRSP, the mortgage is done in about 9 years, with a "loan" equal to the same mortgage principal you started with, but with an investment portfolio worth about $175K.  Note that you'll pay capital gains tax on this portfolio if you remove anything from it, of course.

And finally, if you can turn over a better return rate than your mortgage, you'll be even further ahead, and vice-versa.

Time to go talk to a financial advisor... :)
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because everyone else has one...



Deduct Mortgage Interest on your Income Tax | 2 comments (2 topical)
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