Content area
Full Text
When the Registered Retirement Savings Plan (RRSP) turned 50 on Mar. 14, there were 2 golden anniversaries to celebrate: the birth of one of Canadians' most important retirement-planning tools, and the culmination of one of the CMAs most productive lobbying efforts.
"Most Canadians, physicians included, aren't aware that the CMA was the driving force behind the decision to introduce the RRSP in 1957," President Colin McMillan said in marking the milestone. "Fifty years later, it has fundamentally changed the way Canadians approach retirement planning."
He was referring to the CMAs Jan. 6, 1956, presentation to federal Finance Minister Walter Harris, during which it pleaded for tax deferral for self-employed taxpayers who wanted to save for retirement. Fourteen months later, after the federal budget was presented by Harris on Mar. 14, 1957, CMAJ reported that it contained a policy "which parallels with remarkable consistency the details of our recommendations."
In its 1956 meeting with Harris, the CMA requested an Income Tax Act amendment "to permit self-employed people to deduct from current taxes payments made for annuities or an approved plan."
It argued that since participants in registered pension plans could defer taxes on contributions, it was time "to extend this privilege to members of the professions and other taxpayers who by the nature of their work have not been eligible for inclusion in registered plans."
Maclean's magazine recently acknowledged that doctors were a driving force behind the lobbying efforts that resulted in the RRSP, but it says the development got short shrift at the time. "The big news in the 1957 federal budget was the removal of a 10% tax on candy,...