Muitos pais ficam preocupados sobre o futuro academico dos filhos. No Brasil sempre ha a esperanca de o filho ingressar numa universidade federal ou estadual, mas no Canada nao ha esta opcao. As universidades sao pagas e nao sao baratas. Entretanto, o governo presta um auxilio para aqueles pais que sao de certa forma financeiramente um pouco organizados e economizam com o objetivo de garantir os estudos academicos dos filhos. Vejam a seguir uma breve explicacao deste programa governamental e algumas dicas para nao serem eventualmente surpreendidos. A materia esta em ingles pela falta de tempo para traduzir. Espero que ajude!
RESP - Registered Education Savings Plans
From: Human Resources and Skills Development Canada
Benefits of Having an RESP – Save Early, Earn More
With the help of an RESP you, as a parent, friend or family member, can start putting aside money for a child’s post-secondary education. Your contributions can grow surprisingly quickly when you use this special savings account, as the Government of Canada offers the Canada Education Savings Grant and the Canada Learning Bond exclusively to RESP subscribers.
How to Open an RESP
Opening an RESP is not difficult. In fact, it only takes two simple steps:
- Apply for a Social Insurance Number (SIN).
- Choose an RESP Provider.
Choosing an RESP Provider
RESPs are offered by most financial institutions. It is important to choose providers carefully, as they will be responsible for managing your contributions, as well as making the payments to the child named in the plan. Check out Canlearn.ca for tips that will help you choose an RESPs Provider.
Questions for RESPs Providers
It is important to ask your provider about investment options and to request a list of fees or penalties that you may be required to pay. Canlearn.ca provides a helpful list of questions for RESPs Providers.
Using Your RESPs
Upon enrolling in a qualifying educational program - a course of study that lasts at least three consecutive weeks, with a minimum of 10 hours of instruction or work per week – the child named in your plan will become eligible to receive payments from the RESP to help cover the costs of education after high school. Find out more about using your RESPs and Educational Assistance Payments (EAPs).
What Happens if the Child Does Not Continue Education After High School?
If your beneficiary decides not to attend a post-secondary institution right after high school, visit Canlearn.ca to find out what you can do with the money in your RESP.
RESP Surprises
I started saving for my children’s post-secondary education from the first month they were born. First I used in-trust accounts. Back then the RESP wasn’t the great product it is today so I hedged my bets. When the RESP improved and it became obvious that at least one of my children would be going to university, I switched to using an RESP so I could grab all the grant money I could.
August was the month when money started coming back out of the RESP and I was very surprised to learn that there are restrictions on how much you can pull from an RRSP in the early days. Alex’s school fees and residence costs amounted to about $14,000 for the year. (Yup, that’s what it costs folks, so all you guys who are holding tight to the thought ‘I paid for my education, my kids can pay for theirs’ better check into the new reality of university costs.)
I called My Patrick and asked for the money we’d needed to cover her costs to be taken from the RESP. (I’d already told My Patrick that this was coming, so we’d moved enough to ‘cash’ to make it happen.) I’d never, in a million years, imagined that there would be restrictions on how much I could take from the plan for school.
But there are.
It seems the government has put a little hitch into the system. It’s been created to try and stop scoundrels from grabbing grant money and then absconding without going to school. The hitch is that you can only take $5,000 from the RESP in the first 13 weeks of school, so either you find the extra money you need from cash flow (RIGHT!) or you suck it up and pay the university interest because you have to make “payments.”
Really? I save diligently for my kid and you make me pay interest on a balance I shouldn’t have to carry? That’s the solution you’ve come up with Mr. Federal Man! Wouldn’t a more reasonable solution be that the money must go directly to the school, and if there is a refund because the kid drops out, the money must go directly back to the RESP?
The ironic thing here is that student loans are offered to our kids without any regulation that they be used for tuition, residence or books. Kids get the money in their hot little hands and then head off to Europe, buy a car, or simply drink their way through it without any “guidance” from the government. But savings… ah, that’s altogether another thing. The government isn’t going to make any interest off savings that have been misused so those must be regulated. But if a kid wants to rack up thousands and thousands of dollars in student loans with nary a thought for the long-term implications, that’s fine since the government is going to get it’s ten pounds of flesh.
Ah, yes, another fine example of a well-thought-out plan. Hmmm.
Okay, so your kid’s off to university or college and you want to get at the money you’ve been saving diligently.
The first thing you’ll have to provide is proof of enrollment. You’ll need to check with your planholder institution to see what its particular requirements may be. I just had to pony up Alex’s online registration and the subsequent registration confirmation she received along with her offer of admission. But sometimes you have to get a special form filled out by the university, so ask.
The money from the RESP can be sent to you as the subscriber, to the student (the beneficiary), or directly to the institution. If you’re planning on paying for living expenses beyond residence and tuition from the RESP, and you’re not convinced your kid is savvy enough to handle a whack of cash all at once, you can have the money sent to you and then dole it out monthly. Since the money is technically still yours, the student can’t ask for payments from an RESP. Only you, as subscriber, can do this.
You can specify if the withdrawal is to be made from contributions, non-contributions (returns earned and grant money) or both. The payments will come out in two forms:
- PSE, or Post-Secondary Education payments, which are withdrawals from contributions you made to the plan. These are not taxable income and there are no limits on withdrawals. However, if they are taken out as a “refund of contributions,” or ROC, they will trigger a recapture of the CESG grant money, so be careful. (That’s why I couldn’t just take the extra money we needed from the RESP during the first 13 weeks as a refund of contributions: we would have had to give back the associated grant money.)
- EAP, or Educational Assistance Payments, which are withdrawals from the accumulated income in the RESP. A T4A slip will be issued in your kid’s name for any EAPs made during the year. Check with your RESP planholder to see if they automatically default payments to 100% EAP. Many do and this is the preferable option.
If you have a family plan set up, make sure that you don’t end up withdrawing more than the maximum of $7,200 in grant money allowed for each beneficiary. If you attempt to go over the limit, the grants will be returned to the government. Since your planholder keeps track of how much grant money is paid out to each beneficiary, all you have to do is ask for an update and make your withdrawals based on that information.
You should grab as much of the money from the RESP as you can as EAPs in the early days of withdrawals. Why? Well if your kid does end up dropping out of school, the accumulated income payment (the income not used by the student that is still in the plan – or the opposite of an EAP) becomes taxable income for the subscriber. And there is also a 20% penalty that must be paid. So taking out the money via EAPs in the early days is the best option.
As long as your annual EAP requests are under $20K a year, you don’t have to provide any documentation to show your expenses for school are “reasonable.” That’s great. But you do have to plan for the fact that you can’t get more than $5,000 out of the RESP in the first 13 weeks of school. It was a surprise to me. But now you know.
Bonne Chance! Paola
