The Lifelong Learning Plan (LLP) lets you withdraw from your RRSP without tax to pay for full-time training or education for yourself or your spouse. Like the Home Buyers' Plan, it is a loan from your own savings: the money has to go back.
The rules
- You may withdraw up to $10,000 in a calendar year and $20,000 in total in one participation period.[1] The plan has existed since 1999.
- The amount is repaid over ten years in equal minimums, each one tenth of the balance.[1]
- Repayment normally starts in the fifth year after the first withdrawal, or the second year after the last year the student was enrolled full time, whichever is earlier.[1] The start is set by the student's enrolment: when the person was not a qualifying student for at least three months in each of the two years before, the repayment period begins at the start of the third, fourth or fifth year of the participation period. Otherwise it begins in the sixth calendar year.[2]
- A repayment is not deductible, as it only puts back money that was already deducted.
- Whatever is not repaid by the minimum in a year is added to that year's income.[2]
What the planner does
The planner has no Lifelong Learning Plan. It has no field for study, enrolment or an LLP withdrawal, so a plan never includes one.
The engine can calculate it. It accepts withdrawals up to the $10,000 and $20,000 limits before the repayment period starts, works out the start from the student's enrolment facts or takes it as supplied, and adds an unpaid minimum to income. A withdrawal after repayment has begun, or a second participation period, is refused. Any open LLP balance past the year the RRSP must mature, at 71, is also refused.
See also tuition credits.