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One entry per rule the planner applies: what it is, the formula, the primary source, what the engine does with it and what it deliberately does not. The tooltips on the plan link here, and this is the same wiki the people building the product read before they touch a domain.
- Benefits tested on family incomeThe Canada Child Benefit, the GST/HST credit and the Ontario Trillium Benefit are not projected. They are tested on a family net income the plan never asks for, and a household with children will receive more than this shows.
- Contributions the plan could not affordA monthly contribution is skipped in any month the household's cash cannot cover it, rather than being funded by an overdraft that does not exist. The plan says which ones it skipped.
- Events outside the plan's horizonAn event, purchase or sale dated before the plan starts or after it ends is ignored rather than clamped into range, and the plan says which one it dropped.
- Portfolio growth is modelled pre-taxOn the calculator's rent-versus-buy comparison, investment growth is modelled before tax on every side. Real capital gains and dividend tax would reduce it, so both the renter and the owner are flattered equally.
- Rent, and when it stopsRent is its own line in the plan rather than part of living expenses, and it stops the month your first home closes — because a household that has bought is not paying both. Give it an end date if you would keep renting past that.
- Renting out part of your homeSuite income is taxable and its expenses deductible on the rented portion, but renting can also limit the principal-residence exemption on the eventual sale. The engine takes the cautious reading and says which assumptions it made.
- RESPs and the education grantContributions attract a 20% government grant to $500 a year and $7,200 for a child's lifetime, up to a $50,000 contribution limit. Growth and grants come out taxed in the student's hands, which is usually near zero.
- RRIFs and the wind-up at 71An RRSP must become a RRIF by the end of the year you turn 71, after which a prescribed minimum comes out and is taxed every year. Give a birth year and the plan models it; leave it blank and a plan running past 71 looks better than it is.
- RRSP room, deduction and withdrawalsRoom accrues at 18% of earned income up to the annual cap, contributions earn a deduction refunded the following April, and withdrawals are taxed as income. The plan assumes you start with no carried-forward room unless you say otherwise.
- Tax brackets are not indexed forwardEvery future year is taxed with the 2026 brackets, credits and contribution ceilings rather than guessed-at indexed ones. Real brackets rise with inflation, so tax in later years is overstated and the projection is conservative.
- Taxes are per personCanada has no joint return, so each of you is taxed on your own income with your own brackets and credits. The routes that do move income between partners — pension splitting, spousal RRSPs, prescribed-rate loans — are not modelled, so a couple's real bill may be lower than this.
- The First Home Savings Account$8,000 a year with one year of carryforward and $40,000 for life, deducted from income and withdrawn tax-free for a first home. The refund is credited the following April, and the account winds up into an RRSP if it is never used.
- The Home Buyers' PlanUp to $60,000 out of an RRSP, untaxed, for a first home — but it is a loan to yourself, repaid over fifteen years, and a missed repayment is taxed as income that year.
- The OAS recovery taxYears where net income clears the threshold repay 15% of the excess out of Old Age Security. The projection withholds it from the OAS cash, exactly as the CRA does, and leaves taxable income unchanged.
- What a house costs to holdProperty tax, maintenance, insurance and utilities are estimated as rates against the home's value, with sourced defaults. Property tax then grows with the home while the rest grow with inflation.
- Where the down payment comes fromThe cash to close is assembled from the plan's projected balances in a fixed order — FHSA, TFSA, unregistered, HBP, then taxed RRSP — and each dollar is priced for what taking it costs.