Sylvie, was the sole heir of Paul, her deceased spouse, who died on June 1, 2020, was a member of a registered pension plan (RPP) and had not made any beneficiary designation under the plan. Sylvie, who was gravely ill, did not wish to receive a joint and survivor pension under the plan, and on January 15, 2023, the RPP administrator paid the estate a lump sum of $350,000 less source deductions of $130,000, for a net amount of $220,000. The estate (which was a graduated rate estate, or GRE, with a taxation year end of May 31, 2023), in turn, paid Sylvie $220,000, plus an additional $130,000 out of other liquid assets of the estate or, alternatively, issued her a demand note for $130,000.
Regarding the potential for s. 104(27) to deem the full $350,000 to be an eligible amount for purposes of s. 60(j), so that Sylvie generally would be entitled to make a timely tax-free contribution of that amount to her RRSP, CRA noted:
- This principally required that the entire pension benefit received by Paul's estate have been included in computing Sylvie's income pursuant to s. 104(13), which required that such benefit from Paul's estate have become payable to Sylvie in the estate year in which it received the pension benefit.
- Since Sylvie was Paul’s sole heir, the full pension benefit included in the estate’s income, i.e., $350,000, could be considered payable to her in that year, subject to s. 104(24).
- S. 104(24) would be satisfied if the full $350,000 was paid to her in cash, and also would be satisfied through the estate issuing the demand note “to the extent that the issuance of the note was permitted by the will and … the demand note was unconditional.”