A few evenings ago, I enrolled in one of them new fancy tax-free savings accounts. They technically don’t exist until January 1, 2009 but ING has decided to get a head start on things. Colour me financially naive but I didn’t know we in Canada got taxed on interest that we receive on savings accounts. So these new accounts won’t tax us on that. Given that the interest rates on savings accounts are generally quite low, the gubberment doesn’t take that much away from us. Every little bit saved helps these days, so I’m glad I got in on this early.
I suggest every Canadian who is eligible to open such an account to consider doing so. Saving money, if possible, is always a good idea and doing in a tax-free manner makes it even better.