Home

About us

Charitable Annuities
»Benefits
»Rate Tables
»Application Form
»Security
»Disclosure

Appreciated Securities

RRSP/RRIF

Endowment

Bequests

Sponsor Charities

RRSP / RRIF

A change in law in June, 2001 makes it possible to name charities directly as beneficiaries, and the estate will be deemed to have made the gifts and be entitled to an offsetting charitable receipt. This is a real breakthrough.

Naming many charities on your RRSP is probably not going to go over well with your RRSP or RRIF administrator. We can imagine that the trustee of your plan will refuse to engage in so much work and such costs.

We suggest you name Link Charity as the one and only charity on your RRSP and your RRIF accounts and then use a letter of direction to have Link Charity coordinate all the different amounts in the different plans and make a fair and equitable distribution as per your letter of direction.

Naming charities directly rather than have the amounts payable to your estate can save as much as 10%. You save probate, legal and accounting fees. You save the 5% or more of executor fees. You save as much as a year's delay in getting the funds from your registered plan to the charities.

RRSP and RRIF funds, transferred at death, are not subject to withholding taxes. This means the executors should have a full charitable receipt from Link Charity within a month or two, and the charities should have your funds efficiently as well.

If you decided to name one charity on one RRSP, and several others on another larger RRSP, you could end up with unintended results. If at some time you amalgamated the plans, or moved them all to a new institution as a RRIF, charities you thought were getting a gift may receive nothing. Naming Link could prevent this from happening.

Please feel free to download our sample letter of distribution and our change of beneficiary form available below.

Download Sample Letter of Direction (13KB) (This form is RTF. You should be able to open it in any word processor to fill in your information.)

Download Change of Beneficiary (91KB) (This form is a PDF. Acrobat Reader is freely downloadable.)