Your investing questions, our clear answers.

Our response:

First, while we try to provide general information to help you, we are not able to provide financial or legal advice. Whether an investment is right for you depends on many individual factors – you may wish to discuss your options and get advice from a registered financial advisor.

You can transfer investments, such as stocks or bonds, from a non-registered account to your RRSP. This is called a transfer “in kind”. You might do this if you don’t have the cash to make your contribution, but you have investments that you want to use instead.

This has tax consequences, however. You are considered to have sold your investments at their fair market value and will have to report any resulting gain on your tax return. You can claim an RRSP deduction equal to the fair market value of the investments transferred to your RRSP. If the fair market value results in a loss, in order to claim the loss on your tax return, you must first sell the investments and then contribute the cash proceeds to your RRSP. Learn more about RRSP transfers.