Blessed by the Potato

Budget 2022 proposes to introduce the Tax-Free First Home Savings Account that would give prospective first-time home buyers the ability to save up to $40,000. Like an RRSP, contributions would be tax-deductible, and withdrawals to purchase a first home—including investment income— would be non-taxable, like a TFSA. Tax-free in, tax-free out.

The new Tax-Free First Home Savings Account (FHSA) is pitched as a way to save up for your first home. It’s like a super-charged RRSP: you get to put pre-tax money in, and in one specific circumstance (buying a home), you can take it out tax-free. And if you don’t buy, you can roll it into an RRIF like a regular RRSP.

There’s lots to nit-pick with this idea: the $40k lifetime limit doesn’t make it much more effective for saving for a home than the old HBP option did. And while this is even better as you don’t have to pay it back and get to keep that tax savings, that’s a benefit you only see in later years vs the HBP — the $35k HBP was already letting you put that much pre-tax money to work for the purchase itself. On top of that, the $8k yearly limit means it will take 5 years to max out (and 4 to match what you could do in 90 days with the HBP and a regular RRSP). So at least it will push demand out if some people want to max it out before buying.

It’s a bit regressive, in that people in the highest tax brackets will see the biggest advantage from using the FHSA.

However, ignore all of the talk about using it for a downpayment. The fact that they took out the age limit and let you roll it into an RRIF mean that the FHSA serves another purpose: it helps renters shelter more investment income, functioning basically as more (and with an embedded option!) RRSP room. Someone who buys a place gets any increase in equity as a tax-free gain thanks to the principal residence exemption. That’s been a huge windfall in recent years, and can push people toward buying in an environment where prices are going up double-digits every year. That tax advantage also makes it even harder for those who don’t own to keep up. Someone can choose to rent instead and save the difference in monthly cashflows, but may soon run out of TFSA and RRSP room. An extra $8k/yr will help them shelter more of those gains.

And of course, provide that option to take the whole FHSA out at some point in the future to buy, tax-free.

Imagine a world where the cap and 15-year lifespan were removed and renters continued to get $8k/yr in room until they bought or turned 71 (and rolled it into a RRIF). Someone renting in a big, unaffordable city like Toronto could prioritize their FHSA, knowing that it would make it that much more possible to eventually buy when their indentured servitude in the city was over. $8k/yr at a 5% return would leave someone with nearly $400k after 25 years*. You could make a solid plan to do your time, renting happily along the way, and know that you could — tax-free — have nearly enough to buy a place in the boonies outright when your commuting days were done. Or, have more in your RRSP to support the costs of lifelong renting in retirement if you stayed in the city.

So while I don’t think this was a necessary thing to create (indeed it adds more complication to our tax and savings account system, and yet another financial literacy hurdle), and don’t think it’s going to do a damned thing for housing affordability… I welcome the FHSA. For many people, it will be the obvious first account to fill (even edging out a TFSA for those who plan to buy eventually). However, to be truly great and to help incentivize more people to rent and invest the difference and keep open the option to buy in the future, they’ll have to remove the fairly low lifetime contribution cap.

Indeed, I’m not sure many brokerages will bother to offer registered accounts that can only ever accept $40k, and are only available to the subset of renters who save money to invest — see how few bother to offer RDSPs.

* – remember that this is a hypothetical where they remove the cap and time limit. As it stands, the 2022 Federal Budget proposes a $40k lifetime cap and a 15 year maximum term to either buy a home or roll it into a RRSP/RRIF.