CPP-CPA benefits - CPP - C++ Certified Professional Programmer Updated: 2024

The Canada Pension Plan (CPP) is a cornerstone of many Canadians’ retirement plans. It is payable for life and indexed for inflation. While full retirement benefits are payable at age 65, you can opt to collect CPP at age 60 and take a reduced payment. Or you can defer payments until age 70 and receive a larger payment. This is when the concept of longevity or “break-even” age takes effect – where you determine if by waiting you can collect payments long enough to make to up for what could be years of foregone payments.

The CPP Benefits – Take Early or Later calculator can help you determine whether you should start collecting CPP earlier or consider deferring payments until later.

Did you know that you can receive up to $1,253 per month if you take CPP at age 65?

Not many Canadians know this, because the average CPP payout is between $600 and $700. But if you work all your adult life, have no pension clawbacks, and earn enough to make the max contributions, you’ll pull in $1,253 a month if you start CPP at age 65.

Not bad!

In fact, the CPP payout can go even higher than $1,253. Canada.ca says that CPP payouts rise 8.4% for every year you postpone benefits beyond age 65. The gains from postponement are capped at 42%, so if you wait all the way until age 70, you could get as much as $1,779 per month. That’s a solid pension. With that said, barely anybody actually waits that long to take CPP. Waiting until 65 is often considered to be a postponement in itself! So, we’ll run with that as the “realistic” maximum.

Collecting $1,253 a month in CPP vs. the $619 a month most people get could make a world of difference in your retirement. That extra $634 could be the difference between thriving and struggling. Unfortunately, few ever get the max CPP amount. In this article, I’ll help you to figure out whether you’re one of the lucky few who could be in the running for it.

Calculating your CPP benefit

To know how much CPP you’ll get, you need to calculate your benefit. It goes off a number of factors:

• How long you worked.
• How much you paid in.
• The age at which you took the benefit.
• Whether you have other pension income (this results in clawbacks).

Doing all the CPP calculations by hand can be tough. So, I recommend using the retirement income calculator on Canada.ca. This online app walks you through a series of questions that leads you to an estimate of your monthly CPP benefit. It may not be 100% accurate, but it should be in the right ballpark.

How far will your CPP get you?

How much money you’ll get in CPP should be one of your top concerns if you’re about to retire. The difference between average CPP and max CPP is a universe wide if you spread it out over the course of a lifetime.

Let’s imagine that two retirees invested in an index fund like iShares S&P/TSX 60 Index Fund (TSX:XIU) using their CPP monthly payouts. For simplicity’s sake, let’s ignore taxes and just imagine that they invested every penny.

XIU is a broad market equity fund. These types of funds have historically returned about 10% a year. There’s no guarantee that they’ll keep having returns that strong, but on the flip side, there’s a chance they could do even better. So, we can use 10% as a reasonably conservative return estimate.

If investor A invested a $619 paycheque in XIU, it would (with our assumption) double in 7.2 years. That would take this investor to $1,238.

If investor B invested a $1,253 max CPP cheque it XIU, it would also double, but, in this case, the end amount is much larger at $2,506. The gap between investor B’s and investor A’s cheques initially was only $634. But after both doubled, it is above $1,200! These retirees both invested in the same fund. But because one had a much larger CPP cheque to invest, that individual got much more from their investment.

What to do if your CPP payout is weak

If you’re already about to retire and your CPP payout looks like it will be low, one thing you can do to enlarge it is to wait longer to take it. This results in a steady increase for every year of postponement. While you’re waiting on your retirement date, you can invest your paycheque into funds like XIU and re-invest the dividends for a dependable “supplement” to whatever you’ll ultimately get in CPP. In retirement, every penny counts. So, make it!

[author: Jacob Hesse]

With eDiscovery continuing to make up a large percentage of litigation spend, law firms and corporate legal teams should evaluate ways to save on eDiscovery costs. Exploring the use of proven, yet less expensive eDiscovery software is one obvious strategy to adopt in cost cutting times. Another approach is to consider supplementing a team with seasoned eDiscovery professionals to get work done.

Professional services teams include project managers, data analysts, technologists, and others who provide expert knowledge in particular domain areas. The capabilities they bring to the table can make a huge difference to the success and budget of your eDiscovery project. Example benefits may include:

• Focused data collection: An expert collection specialist can target relevant data, reducing the burden and cost of large volumes of irrelevant, unwanted information.
• Faster processing: A dedicated person or team can process terabytes of data, leveraging expert knowledge of processing software to achieve speed to data.
• Better search results: Unless you majored in math, Boolean operators may not be your best friend, but they are very familiar to eDiscovery certified that can craft defensible culling strategies and get your attorneys’ eyes on relevant documents quickly and accurately.
• Greater efficiency in managing data volume and types: eDiscovery matters have grown in complexity in exact years, thanks to remote work and the explosion in use of communication apps and texts for business. Bringing in experts who can approach complex data management with ease will save you time and money in the long run.
• Reduced chaos: Project managers are the eye of the storm. They watch over project budgets, monitor for risks, and create and execute the tasks necessary to complete a project successfully. If you don’t have the time to manage multiple resources and external vendors, project managers can be a lifeline.
• Defend the margin: Professional services can reduce your costs by minimizing the reliance on full time eDiscovery professionals, who may not be needed once a discovery project ends. Ramp your professional services staff up and down as the work demands, matching cost with need. This style of “just in time” staffing will please your CFO and maximize your profits.

To summarize, there are many reasons why legal teams should consider relying on outside professional services support for eDiscovery matters, especially at a time when eDiscovery is becoming more complex, and the demand for cost savings and faster discovery work turnarounds are high. 

In our next blog on this series, we share telltale signs that forecast the need for professional services help for eDiscovery.

For Healthcare FSAs, funds must be used by March 15th of the following year; all claims must be submitted by April 30th
For Dependent Care FSA, funds must be used by December 31st
Requires annual election during open enrollment

Since its inception, the SETI Institute has consistently offered competitive health benefits at no cost to employees.

Employees can elect to enroll their dependents in the group health benefits by cost sharing with the SETI Institute. We value our employees, care about their health and wellbeing, and believe they deserve to have top tier benefit coverage! SETI Institute employees working 20 or more hours per week become eligible for health benefits the first of the month after date of hire.  No waiting period!

Military pay will increase 5.2% for 2024, compared to 2023 levels, now that President Joe Biden has signed the new rate into law. These military pay tables apply to active members of the Navy, Marine Corps, Army, Air Force, Coast Guard and Space Force.

A simplified employee pension (SEP) IRA is a retirement savings plan established by employers for the benefit of their employees and themselves. It can also be established by self-employed individuals. Employers can make tax-deductible contributions on behalf of eligible employees to their SEP IRAs.

SEPs are advantageous because they are easy to set up, have low administrative costs, and allow an employer to determine how much to contribute each year. SEP IRAs also have higher annual contribution limits than traditional IRAs. What's more, employer contributions vest immediately.