Joint Investment Account with spouse? Any reason to do this?

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OhGreatGuru
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Re: Joint Investment Account with spouse? Any reason to do this?

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qwimjim wrote: 16 Mar 2015 08:19 ...
Thanks for the help, I hope it helps someone else in the future, unfortunately I should have made clear that I am in Quebec in my original post, I was not aware that the laws were different here so I'm not sure if anything you wrote applies here unfortunately :)
I should have qualified that it may not apply in Quebec. (We need a code or acronym for an automatic disclaimer for this.). Quebec civil law is different than the rest of Canada (ROC). It is based on the "Code Civil", inherited from continental European legal traditions - most notably the Napoleonic Code and the earlier Coutume de Paris. Quebec's right to continue in this tradition is inscribed in the Constitution, and goes back even further to the Quebec Act of 1774. The ROC is based on the the traditions of British common law. Vive la différence!
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Re: Joint Investment Account with spouse? Any reason to do this?

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AltaRed wrote: 19 May 2017 19:37 SkaSka, regarding the 2 JTWROs accounts you speak of. A nitpick but there is nothing maigic about equal amounts of investments in each account. Indeed, it is somewhat unlikely each spouse will contribute the same amount of his/her earnings into investments at any given time. Remember it is 'her' money that needs to go to 'her' JTWROS account, and 'his' money that needs to go to 'his' JTWROS account. It could happen though if household expenses are shared disproportionately (perfectly legal) so as to create the ability to make 'equal' contributions. One could decide to have the 2 investment portfolios mirror each other in terms of asset allocation and product selection. That is a decision the couple needs to take, i.e. one could disproportionately invest ex-Canada and the other Canada, for example, or one could have a more conservative allocation (more likely in my estimation since it would be rare for both individuals to have the same risk tolerance).

FWIW, for the decades my spouse and I invested together, our 2 JTWROS accounts never had the same portfolio nor did they have the same asset allocation. We chose NOT to have the same investments in each account, e.g. if she had RY in hers, I might have TD in mine. OTOH, if they would have been ETFs, then yes, one could argue mirror images makes more sense.
Thanks for the further clarification and advice! I was under the impression that I needed to have the exact same investments and exact same dollar amounts contributed to make the tax trail easiest as possible for CRA.

I'm still trying to decide whether to it will be something like XIC/VCN or 20 different Canadian dividend paying stocks (RY, ENB, L, etc. etc.). I keep going back and forth between the options. The cash just keeps piling up as I ponder what decision to make :lol:
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Re: Joint Investment Account with spouse? Any reason to do this?

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SkaSka wrote: 25 May 2017 11:25 Thanks for the further clarification and advice! I was under the impression that I needed to have the exact same investments and exact same dollar amounts contributed to make the tax trail easiest as possible for CRA.
The point is IF you have 2 JTWROS accounts, one with your spouse (as primary) and one with yourself (as primary), and the contributions are 100% attributable to the primary owner of the account, T5/T3 tax reporting is simple.

Example: Your spouse contriubutes $15k today to the JTWROS account (with her as primary) and buys X Y and Z stocks. Somwhere along the way, you contribute $20k to the JTWROS account (with you as primary) and buy VCN. Then whatever income is generated and reported on the T5 for 'her' account is obviously attribuate to her on her tax return. Meanwhile, you get a T3 for 'your' acccount and you report the income on your tax return. It does not get simpler than that. You just have to be able to account for each of your contriubtions, Ideally, her contributions should come from her chequing/savings account, and your contributions should ideally come from your chequing/savings account for the best paper trrail, but not essential. Each of you, in event of a CRA query, just have to expalin how you each got the money to make the contributions in the first place, e.g. employment earnings.
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Re: Joint Investment Account with spouse? Any reason to do this?

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I'm still trying to decide whether to it will be something like XIC/VCN or 20 different Canadian dividend paying stocks (RY, ENB, L, etc. etc.). I keep going back and forth between the options. The cash just keeps piling up as I ponder what decision to make :lol:
OT - If you have to rebalance which one/ones of the Canadian 20 would you sell? Which broad based indexs its simple.
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Re: Joint Investment Account with spouse? Any reason to do this?

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AltaRed wrote: 25 May 2017 13:01
SkaSka wrote: 25 May 2017 11:25 Thanks for the further clarification and advice! I was under the impression that I needed to have the exact same investments and exact same dollar amounts contributed to make the tax trail easiest as possible for CRA.
The point is IF you have 2 JTWROS accounts, one with your spouse (as primary) and one with yourself (as primary), and the contributions are 100% attributable to the primary owner of the account, T5/T3 tax reporting is simple.

Example: Your spouse contriubutes $15k today to the JTWROS account (with her as primary) and buys X Y and Z stocks. Somwhere along the way, you contribute $20k to the JTWROS account (with you as primary) and buy VCN. Then whatever income is generated and reported on the T5 for 'her' account is obviously attribuate to her on her tax return. Meanwhile, you get a T3 for 'your' acccount and you report the income on your tax return. It does not get simpler than that. You just have to be able to account for each of your contriubtions, Ideally, her contributions should come from her chequing/savings account, and your contributions should ideally come from your chequing/savings account for the best paper trrail, but not essential. Each of you, in event of a CRA query, just have to expalin how you each got the money to make the contributions in the first place, e.g. employment earnings.
Everything is crystal clear now - thank you so much for providing the examples!
BRIAN5000 wrote: 25 May 2017 13:05
I'm still trying to decide whether to it will be something like XIC/VCN or 20 different Canadian dividend paying stocks (RY, ENB, L, etc. etc.). I keep going back and forth between the options. The cash just keeps piling up as I ponder what decision to make :lol:
OT - If you have to rebalance which one/ones of the Canadian 20 would you sell? Which broad based indexs its simple.
Questions like this have me seriously tipped over to just buying XIC or VCN and keeping it as simple as possible.

I think I've come to to the conclusion that being an "Enterprising Investor" just inside my TFSA is enough for me :lol:
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Re: Joint Investment Account with spouse? Any reason to do this?

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After much thumb-twiddling, I've decided to keep it as simple as possible and go with equal amounts of XIC in the non-registered accounts.

The first $5,000 in each joint account were deployed into XIC and going forward we will just add equal amounts of XIC as idle money hits $2000 or above in each account.

Being an "enterprising investor" in 1 TFSA and 1 RRSP account is work enough - everything else is getting indexed.
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Re: Joint Investment Account with spouse? Any reason to do this?

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I notice that at RBC Direct Investing, there only seem to be Beneficiary Designation Forms for the RSP and TFSA accounts.

Unless I am totally blind, are there no Beneficiary Designation Forms for non-registered accounts and/or do such forms not apply to non-registered accounts?
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Re: Joint Investment Account with spouse? Any reason to do this?

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I have never seen beneficiary forms for non-reg accounts nor should there be in my opinion. Other than JTWROS accounts that allocate proceeds undivided to surviving account owners (if any), proceeds are subject to Probate and terms of Wills.
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Re: Joint Investment Account with spouse? Any reason to do this?

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AltaRed wrote: 09 Jun 2017 14:53 I have never seen beneficiary forms for non-reg accounts nor should there be in my opinion. Other than JTWROS accounts that allocate proceeds undivided to surviving account owners (if any), proceeds are subject to Probate and terms of Wills.
Thank you for the clarification!
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Re: Joint Investment Account with spouse? Any reason to do this?

Post by skinnyinvestor »

I am attempting to set up two non-registered JWROS accounts at Questrade. They are telling me that they have no way to determine who the contributors are and that the attribution must be split 50/50 if the accounts are joint.

They are telling me that I need to set up "Tenants in Common" accounts and then designate 100%/0% allocations for the contributions.

Has anyone ever experienced this?

I have seen up thread where the two JWROS accounts have been effective for many others for years.

Assistance is greatly appreciated.
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Re: Joint Investment Account with spouse? Any reason to do this?

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Never heard of such a thing from an FI I have ever dealt with, nor can I imagine they have any business trying to allocate attribution.
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Re: Joint Investment Account with spouse? Any reason to do this?

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AltaRed wrote: 14 Jan 2019 10:35 Never heard of such a thing from an FI I have ever dealt with, nor can I imagine they have any business trying to allocate attribution.
This is what I thought.

There response to my question of who has the burden of proof for attribution was as follows:
Unfortunately attribution would up to you to allocate. Your tax slips will say it's a joint account between yourself and your spouse. However, how the taxes shall be split will be up to you to determine with a tax advisor. We don't report specific portions for either account holders
To which I asked why I couldn't then just open the 2 JTWROS as has been described up thread.

EDIT: They have now said this is possible, but I will be responsible for how I file the taxes. Maybe I should have asked them if they would take that responsibility if I opened the Tenants in Common account? :x
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Re: Joint Investment Account with spouse? Any reason to do this?

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Finally some common sense. It is up to you to allocate tax slip Sch 3 and 4 allocations from JTWROS accounts at tax time, the way it should be. Same thing as you can do in a chequing account, savings account, etc, etc.
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Re: Joint Investment Account with spouse? Any reason to do this?

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I assume what you are doing is setting up two accounts, one for your spouse and one for yourself. You want them to be JWROS for survivorship purposes.

The common strategy is to open one in her name as the primary account holder, with you as the secondary holder. Her name appears first on account documentation. Tax slips will be issued in her name.

A second account is opened for you with you as primary holder and her secondary. Your name will appear first on docs and you will get tax slips.

You have to be very clear about this with most firms otherwise you end up with 2 accounts with the same primary holder. You have to remember that the clerical staff who open accounts at places like this have no real training other than how to fill out forms.

Even if you have one account for both of you, you just have to keep track of who deposits how much and apportion tax slips based on that. Some people keep track of which person has what investments within the account and track that for tax purposes but this takes a lot more work in my eyes.
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Re: Joint Investment Account with spouse? Any reason to do this?

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twa2w wrote: 14 Jan 2019 15:59 I assume what you are doing is setting up two accounts, one for your spouse and one for yourself. You want them to be JWROS for survivorship purposes.

The common strategy is to open one in her name as the primary account holder, with you as the secondary holder. Her name appears first on account documentation. Tax slips will be issued in her name.

A second account is opened for you with you as primary holder and her secondary. Your name will appear first on docs and you will get tax slips.

You have to be very clear about this with most firms otherwise you end up with 2 accounts with the same primary holder. You have to remember that the clerical staff who open accounts at places like this have no real training other than how to fill out forms.

Even if you have one account for both of you, you just have to keep track of who deposits how much and apportion tax slips based on that. Some people keep track of which person has what investments within the account and track that for tax purposes but this takes a lot more work in my eyes.
Agreed with you on all counts.

What I ended up doing in order to ensure this is done correctly was to open one account under my profile and create a completely client new profile for my wife in order to open her account.

We are each listed as the 'joint' account holder on the other person's primary account with survivorship. Contributions to each account will come directly from the primary account holder's chequing account via PACC monthly. This way, I believe, the paper trail should be solid for CRA purposes.
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Re: Joint Investment Account with spouse? Any reason to do this?

Post by twa2w »

yes you should be golden.
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Re: Joint Investment Account with spouse? Any reason to do this?

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So by doing this you no longer need POA on either account or trading authority? Both have unlimited access to move money in and out?
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Re: Joint Investment Account with spouse? Any reason to do this?

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BRIAN5000 wrote: 17 Jan 2019 16:57 So by doing this you no longer need POA on either account or trading authority? Both have unlimited access to move money in and out?
I believe this to be the correct theory.
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Re: Joint Investment Account with spouse? Any reason to do this?

Post by Spudd »

I have a joint investment account with my spouse and can confirm that indeed, we both have full access to it.
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