The maximum OAS a couple can get is $19,600. Here's how to collect all of it | General financial discussion | Discussion forum

As I understand it, Ted Rechtshaffen is a financial planner/adviser of a family office wealth planning firm for ultra high net worth individuals. 🙁

As I also understand it, so long as the couple do not each make more than $75,000.00 per person, they will maximize their OAS. That figure seems a bit high for OAS, hopefully he's not including GIS in that total. GIS is an income supplement for ultra low income seniors and it not something people should aspire to obtaining, in my opinion.

Cheers,
Doug

Vatox said
154k for a couple is the zero clawback point! That’s mighty good income for retirement.  

Indeed, it is obscene retirees of that potential income can suck off the public teat. The system is broken as I have written about before.

Doug said

Thank you, AltaRed, for saying this! So refreshing to hear another forum member, and a senior no less, say this. +10 for the above post.

Cheers,
Doug  

If you are still single, @Doug , when you turn 65, you will need to have a "common law partner " living with you who does not collect OAS, and then your combined income can be up to $43,728 for you to be able to collect the supplement 🙂 They didn't mention that strategy in the article.

NorthernRaven said
The $19,600 figure is for OAS fully deferred until age 70 (0.6% more per deferred month; 5*12*0.6 = 36% more), so that amount is only reached when the younger half of the couple hits 70.
OAS at normal age 65 is about $7200 ($14,400 for a couple).

The clawback reaction really depends on how you look at OAS. It isn't a poverty supplement, but more of a base retirement income as part of the redistributive tax system. Higher income retirees will have also been paying higher marginal rates (and of course higher absolute amounts), so there's some equity in not clawing back too early or sharply. It would be interesting to see if estimates are available as to how much OAS expenditure is saved with the current clawback, or a sense of how much more would be saved under other clawback formulae (25 cents per excess dollar, for instance, or dropping the starting point to $70,000).  

Okay, but if it's supposed to be a retirement supplement for everyone, then it should be fully costed and paid for by a separately managed account, like the Canada Pension Plan. Currently, it's paid out of general revenues and it eats up an increasing amount of general revenue each year.

And yeah, I did see what he's getting at with delaying OAS to age 70. Yes, that's definitely possible. I think 70 is a bit on the older side. No guarantee we're all going to live to be 95-100. I don't think the actuarial tables bear that out yet. 😉

I'll probably take my CPP+OAS at age 67 and work, part-time, until age 72.

Cheers,
Doug

Briguy said

If you are still single, @Doug , when you turn 65, you will need to have a "common law partner " living with you who does not collect OAS, and then your combined income can be up to $43,728 for you to be able to collect the supplement 🙂 They didn't mention that strategy in the article.  

I don’t understand your point. If 77k is the max income for full OAS, then what significance is the $43,728 figure?

Doug said

I was confused at first, too, Vatox, by Briguy's point. I think he might've been referring to my GIS reference in one of my posts above, so maybe $43,728 is the cutoff for a low income senior couple to receive at least some GIS?

Cheers,
Doug  

If you are married, or live with a common law partner, but only one of you is eligible for old age security, ( eg. your partner has been less than 10 yr in Canada ) then the cutoff to receive guaranteed income supplement rises from 24,096 to 43,728 for the couple. I was joking because Doug says he doesn't plan to get married, so he could just live with someone and collect the supplement after 3 years.

The cutoff is 125,686 for a couple to receive full OAS if you don't plan on getting the guaranteed income supplement.

Doug said

Who plans on receiving the GIS, though? That's my question.

And, I think the cutoff is actually ~$150,000 for a dual income couple ($75,000 x 2) with no OAS clawback (which is far too high, in my and AltaRed's opinions). 😉

I plan to target a retirement income of between $50,000-60,000, and my working age income of $40-50,000. My needs are modest. I've got ~$250,000 saved so far, and still have ~30-35 years left to work (to my age 65-70) and, if things pan out as I plan following my graduation from the Library & Information Technology program, should be able to work in some type of library with a decent DB pension plan (so will have less room for RRSPs, which suits me just fine).

Cheers,
Doug  

My point was that if you do PLAN on getting the guaranteed income supplement, you could find someone to live with you recently immigrated to Canada, and after 3 yr you would be common law married, and if you targeted a household income of less than 43,728 you would get the supplement. I was just being facetious, because the article gave out so many ways to collect more OAS, but didn't mention that way.

Doug and I think alike. I too am single and have no intention of ever living with someone. It’s too risky these days, for men anyways.