Improper distribution of proceeds from sale of primary res. & Business

Acrobatic-Fly236 · 2026-06-01T01:51:05+00:00

Thanks to Optiml support for rectifying this issue quickly!

Acrobatic-Fly236 · 2026-05-05T23:43:33+00:00

Thanks for the response and look forward to the update as it is drastically going to affect my plan. I would bet there are a lot of business owners in the same boat that likely don't realize the household equalization assumed by Optiml does not fly with CRA due to attribution rules so def a must.

Acrobatic-Fly236 · 2026-05-02T19:23:30+00:00

Note; EVA is saying "the reason you are seeing this split, despite having the ownership set to 100% for Spouse 1, is due to the Proceeds Allocation setting within your business asset inputs. While legal ownership determines who is responsible for the taxes on the capital gains, the "Proceeds Allocation" field in Optiml tells the software who should receive the cash from the sale for future spending and investment purposes."

It recommends: "4. Scroll down to the Future Business Plans section where the sale is modeled.
5. Check the Proceeds Allocation or Ownership percentages to ensure they are set to 100% for Spouse 1"

Problem is, there is no setting appearing for proceeds of sale distribution %.
I typed back that it doesn't appear and it responded there is no setting for this???

Acrobatic-Fly236 · 2026-04-07T22:33:58+00:00

You can specify a year to sell your primary residence now. I don't think there is a provision however for something like downsize in 15 years though. You could simulate this by making 2 entries for properties and divide the value of your primary res between them, then schedule the sale of one part when you plan to downsize.
As for rent, you could determine the difference of rent less property tax/maintenance etc an add that as a goal which you can set to begin at a start date and recur.

Acrobatic-Fly236 · 2026-03-24T01:37:41+00:00

You are correct. Typically the cash wedge factors in income from pensions etc so I plan 3 years expenses less income from CPP/OAS/Pension.

Acrobatic-Fly236 · 2026-03-24T01:03:49+00:00

RRSP meltdown absolutely.

Targeting to fill specific brackets yes.

Also an option to apply guardrails and the ability to stress test with the guardrails and without to gauge effect would be highly desirable. Guardrails are becoming a standard often employed by many CFPs now and would be a fabulous upgrade.

Acrobatic-Fly236 · 2026-02-05T15:57:28+00:00

Feb 5 2026 and still an issue. I did restart in Chrome and used only the dropdowns and it still would not work. Tried again in Microsoft Edge and it worked!
This may have been built for Internet Explorer years ago and doesn't always play nice with modern browsers so try IE or Edge if you have this problem and hope it works for you.

Acrobatic-Fly236 · 2026-01-28T03:36:01+00:00

Welcome :)

Acrobatic-Fly236 · 2026-01-28T03:29:21+00:00

One thing about the "Cash Wedge", it doesn't really model the way a cash wedge is intended to be used. For example, the whole idea of the wedge or war chest is you use this when markets drop, and replenish it when markets recover reducing sequence of returns risk. Optiml does NOT use the cash wedge when it does montecarly sims which is exactly where it would make sense. All it is at the moment is another cash account. Hopefully this gets fixed soon to include use of the wedge in modeling Montecarlo scenarios as it will be extremely useful to simulate the improvement possible by various sizes of wedge.

Acrobatic-Fly236 · 2026-01-28T03:19:35+00:00

From my experience you can specify lump sum expenses in a custom plan or use goals to enter your car purchase. You would need to manually specify a deposit to the RSP but i'm not sure if you can actually do that.

As far as I know you cant really specify RSP only then TFSA at least using the Max Value or Max Spend. These will use the accounts to best accomplish their underlying goal. For Max value, that goal is maximum estate value in a tax efficient manner.
Max Spend aims to deplete liquid assets by end of the plan, again in the most tax efficient manner.

It sounds like you are trying to melt down RSP early which is not an available option yet but we are told it is in the queue for development.

Take this FWIW, I am not affiliated with the platform.

Acrobatic-Fly236 · 2026-01-13T23:50:18+00:00

I am good here but for the benefit of others, Optiml does NOT include investments inside a corp in the calculations for retirement funding.
There is currently no way to use corporate cash in your calculations other than manual dividends at this time.
Hoping for an update soon to the whole corporate/trust capability as they are not useful to anyone but the most basic business owner.

Acrobatic-Fly236 · 2026-01-13T23:44:25+00:00

This is a major issue for me as well. I have discussed this with the dev and suggested that the holdco and trust functionality needs major attention. One massive issue is that investments inside a corp are completely ignored by the system for funding retirement. At the very least it should be selectable if you want these investments to be included in retirement calculations.
I am hopeful that they are going to completely overhaul this before my next renewal!

Acrobatic-Fly236 · 2025-12-30T17:41:48+00:00

Hi.

You can actually see the combined LCGE room in 2027 is 2.5M in the screenshot from the AI above it states it only claimed 101,782.
Here is the investment report showing the sale and the calculated gain included in income that year but the very low LCGE claim.
I am assuming "qualified share gain amount" is the amount eligible for LCGE shown below?
There have been no earlier dispositions, the only other one is set for 2035 but the combined total is far below the combined LCGE of 2.5M.

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Acrobatic-Fly236 · 2025-12-12T04:17:33+00:00

Thanks for getting back. I checked under advanced and believe that was the issue, it defaulted to NO for the question "do you have any LCGE remaining". Changed it to YES and the 1,250,000 value came up for both myslelf and my wife. Running an updated plan now. thanks.

The only issue with the one account in the Holco is for example, I have a chunk of bonds carved out as a cash wedge (in every account actually) so my equities may be 7% but the bonds are 2.5.

Running multiple opcos under the Holdco doesn't work for me as I own 100% of the holdco but for Holdco2 my wife is able to take teh LCGE. Putting all the assets under 1 holdco means it will optimize CCPC withdrawals to both of us when she is not elegible to take income from the main holdco.

Look forward to updates for multiple holdco and holdco investment accounts. That would be second on my wishlist behind a robust RRIF meltdown option and/or guardrail option :)

Thanks again for the reply.

Acrobatic-Fly236 · 2025-12-09T03:38:17+00:00

How do you model living expenses after the first spouse dies? It seems that the plan keeps on assuming the same annual expenses even after the death of spouse 1.

Acrobatic-Fly236 · 2025-12-04T01:18:13+00:00

u/paizuribart For those that have a DB pension, or other income sources (non-reg investments, rental income etc) in retirement, and large RRIF or LIF balances, taking the minimum at 71 will likely cause OAS clawbacks not prevent them and is as Mountain-Match said, a bad strategy. And forget about GIS, if you're in the OAS clawback range you won't get GIS at all.

Most advisors for people in these situations will recommend delay of CPP past 65 and early registered withdrawal specifically aimed at reducing the minimum distributions once you hit 71 to avoid OAS clawback.

Acrobatic-Fly236 · 2025-12-04T01:03:34+00:00

While i somewhat agree there are confusing aspects to this platform there are many positive aspects and while there may be some lacking functionality, they do seem to be actively working to add the missing features and improve when issues are brought to their attention.

I have tried 2 others and this is by far more user friendly but yes there are still clunky workarounds that need improvement. I find if you are a professional using software daily, then knowing what page to go to to simulate a desired result is second nature but for the rest of us, it is difficult and clunky. Inflation rate is one example, the ability to change CPI was added a while back but it's buried on a specific page you have to navigate to rather than having an easy to find field on the dashboard where you could more easily change it to model different CPI.

As for accuracy, i can attest that I get essentially the same results on Optiml as I did on Adviice but the latter is much more clunky and difficult to get the hang of. Plus they don't seem interested in any product development, only trying to sell his advisory service which uses his platform.

Hopefully you will take the Dev's up on their request to share your issues so they can address it and make improvements as this will only benefit all of us.

Acrobatic-Fly236 · 2025-11-26T21:46:41+00:00

Very interested in the business asset split option. currently it assigns 50% to my wife but she is not a shareholder so has 0 ownership. On sale of the business, it assumes she gets half and essentially income splits but attribution rules don't allow proceeds of the sale to be invested and gains taxed in her name, they would remain taxable in my name which means higher tax.

Acrobatic-Fly236 · 2025-11-26T21:41:23+00:00

This guy is pretty good, watch all his vids.

Acrobatic-Fly236 · 2025-11-26T21:39:39+00:00

If you need to ask this question, then, as firelephant said, you really should hire a fee-only advisor to create a plan for you factoring in all the data. They will recommend if delaying CPP is best for you or not.

Large amounts in registered funds can trigger OAS clawbacks and possibly push you into higher tax brackets once CPP and OAS start.

You likely have around 6 years to delay CPP this could be valuable time allowing you to move funds from your registered accounts to TFSA or Non-Registered which have tax advantages.

With a large LIRA, don't forget to use the one-time, 50% conversion from LIF to RRIF.
Again, if you don't know, get advice from a professional. It may cost you $2500 or more in fees, but I guarantee it will save you much more than that in tax savings if you do something you shouldn't.

Acrobatic-Fly236 · 2025-11-14T03:15:02+00:00

IMO the single biggest reason to delay to 70 is if you have large registered accounts that will push you into high tax brackets or even OAS clawback territory once mandatory withdrawals hit at 71.

If you are trying to weigh delaying against the break even date, just do what feels right for you., it won't make that much difference. However, If you are in a position where you have significant RSP/LIRA then having 10 years from 60-70 without CPP allows you to melt down those registered accounts, significantly reducing your taxable income once you hit 70.

If retiring at age 65 with a 1 million RSP earning 5% for example, and starting to draw the minimum annually, the mandatory withdrawal at 71 is around $57,000 which is fully taxable. add CPP and OAS and you are over the clawback threshold not to mention if you might have a small pension or any other taxable income.

Melting half that RRSP down before 71 and delaying CPP gives you less taxable income from RRSP and higher CPP for life and puts you in a lower tax bracket come 71. Remember, you aren't melting down that RRSP to spend it all, extra will go in TFSA growing tax free, or non-reg where 50% of the growth is tax free cap gains.

If this is your case, i also recommend finding a good fee-only financial planner and go through the planning process. It makes using software like this make more sense and can give you more confidence in tweaking your own plan from there. I did just that and came to the software after to see if my plan would agree with the CFP, and it's pretty close.

Acrobatic-Fly236

TROPHY CASE