Sponsoring parents. Use RRSP to replace annual min income.

[amusingfirefly]

RRSP is currently counted towards LICO. I know a few people sponsoring parents who had a small RRSP withdrawal counted towards LICO (both NOA and SIN provided). But that was very small amount. I haven't seen anyone that showed entire year's income as RRSP. At the very minimum, I think this will create doubts in an officer's mind if you will still comply with income requirements the next year so it is likely IRCC will check your income again towards the end of application. But if you will be back to work and will comply with income requirements with regular income, I personally don't see any problem.

I am totally find with IRCC asking for an update to my income statement towards the end of my application. I am talking to some companies and hopefully will have a job before too long.

 

[Elaine amj]

RRSP is currently counted towards LICO. I know a few people sponsoring parents who had a small RRSP withdrawal counted towards LICO (both NOA and SIN provided). But that was very small amount. I haven't seen anyone that showed entire year's income as RRSP. At the very minimum, I think this will create doubts in an officer's mind if you will still comply with income requirements the next year so it is likely IRCC will check your income again towards the end of application. But if you will be back to work and will comply with income requirements with regular income, I personally don't see any problem.

I did have other income so wasn't attempting to show an entire year's income with RRSPs

My DH was receiving nontaxable disability payments and that affected our NOA susbstantially as that income could not be reported on line 150.

We'll see what happens. Hopefully all works out for my application. I was glad it all showed up as I had hoped in my NOA.

 

[sappi]

I did have other income so wasn't attempting to show an entire year's income with RRSPs

My DH was receiving nontaxable disability payments and that affected our NOA susbstantially as that income could not be reported on line 150.

We'll see what happens. Hopefully all works out for my application. I was glad it all showed up as I had hoped in my NOA.

Sorry, my point regarding showing entire year's income with RRSP was for OP. But there is definitely no question regarding use of RRSP towards LICO as per current rules. Like I said, I know a few people who have done it and one recently got approved as sponsor in April 2019. Good luck to you

 

[Elaine amj]

I did. I ended up choosing to say no to providing my SIN numbers and printed off my NOAs instead. The Notice of Assessments don’t separate out the different income. Just the total from Line 150.

I am financially stable and have no issues liquidating some of my RRSPs other than losing a small amount of interest. I did put a chunk right back into my RRSPs.

Update with good news:
I was short for my 3rd year (my DH was off work for cancer and I also took a one year Leave of Absence to care for him) so I ended up liquidating a chunk of my RRSPs to make up the difference for Line 150. I did not provide them our SIN numbers so they did not have access to all our tax forms. I was pretty nervous as we were asked to send additional documents showing income for 2019 (because I sent 2016, 2017, and 2018 NOAs and not 2017, 2018, 2019 NOAs) and the forms we sent clearly showed drastically lower employment income and that we made up the difference with our RRSP withdrawals (it was a fairly significant amount - $25k between DH and I plus another chunk in capital gains from selling a rental property). Thankfully, a few weeks ago, I got an email stating that I have met the requirements to be eligible to sponsor and my mother's case was forwarded to her local visa office (Singapore) even though she is currently with us in Canada on a supervisa.

 

[Elaine amj]

Another update - as I reported, my sponsorship was approved with RRSPs forming the chunk of our income and today, we were informed my mother's PR application has been approved as well

Liquidating some RRSPs was not an issue for us financially. Would definitely caution against this strategy if there is a chance you will have difficulty providing for your family AND your parents for the next 20 years though.