Should you take CPP at age 60?

Canadians that have been employed and contributed to the Canada Pension Plan currently have an option whether to take their pension at age 60, or wait until later before they start drawing benefits.

The general rule is that if you worked 35 of 42 years of your working career (i.e. from age 18 to 60 minus 7 low income years) at a full level of CPP contributions (in 2009 this implied a $46,200 salary) you will receive approximately $11,210 per year at age 65 as your CPP pension.

If you decide to take CPP when you hit the age of 60, you will be penalized 0.5% per month, or a 30% total sum; this will reduce your annual take-home to $7,847 per year. The advantage is that you get to collect $7,847 a year for five years, while in the scenario of taking CPP at age 65, you would receive nothing until reaching that age.

If you wait until you reach age 61, your penalty goes from 30% to 24% and this is not a 6% increase in benefits; it is actually (0.3-0.24/0.7) or a 8.57% difference.

Most commentators on this issue do a “breakeven age” analysis of CPP. While this is mathematically correct, even if your life expectancy is expected to be longer than 76.7 years (which is the breakeven age between taking CPP at age 60 vs. 65), there are two very relevant factors to take into consideration:

1. The guaranteed income supplement (GIS). If you have no other expected income at the age of 65, you will effectively be taxed on CPP income at the rate of 50% because for every dollar of CPP you earn, you will have your GIS reduced by 50 cents.

2. If you take CPP, if you ever work again, you no longer have to pay CPP, which is a 4.95% savings on your paycheque.

3. A dollar earned at age 60 is more useful than a dollar earned at age 65 simply because of the probability of dying goes higher and because money is easier to spend while (relatively) younger. This “quality of life” factor is almost never discussed.

The only reason one would want to delay taking CPP beyond the age of 60 is because they are expecting to make enough other supplemental income where the GIS clawback no longer becomes a factor and also that they have enough bottled income stashed away (i.e. through RRSPs) that they are in no need of money at the present moment. In this case, the expected lifespan of the individual becomes the primary determinant of when to take CPP.

All of this discussion does not discuss the rule changes that will be taking place for people taking CPP in 2012 and beyond. I have analyzed this previously. The rule changes will discourage people from taking CPP early.

Harvest Energy debenture liquidation

I noticed in my accounts today that the “D” series of Harvest Energy (6.4% coupon, maturity October 31, 2012) has been sold at 1.015 on the dollar. I set the order about a month after the takeover announcement.

At this price, the debentures have a current yield of 6.31% and an implied capital gain of -0.51%.

There is a floor price of 1.01 on the dollar because of the obligation of KNOC to purchase all debentures at this price; my sense of risk suggests that I should be liquidating them on the open market higher than the 1.01 repurchase price. I don’t want to wait two and three-quarters years to collect my money since I can probably reinvest the proceeds at a rate better than 5.8%.

The “E” series of trust units is a little trickier; its coupon is 7.25%, maturity on September 30, 2013. Right now it is at 1.0175 which is implying a current yield of 7.13% and a capital gain of -0.46%. It is priced relatively lower than the D series. If you assume the same yield valuation on the E series, you get a price of 1.045 on the debentures (current yield 6.94%, capital gain -1.15%) but the debentures will never trade that high. My liquidation point for the E series is between 1.015 and 1.045 and we will see if it gets there.

Harvest “G” is the longest duration and highest coupon (7.5%, maturity May 31, 2015) and it is trading at 1.026 currently. This is an implied current yield of 7.31% and a capital gain of -0.67%.

I will be happy to receive a premium over the 1.01 floor price and be rid myself of the debentures, preferably in the new tax year. I don’t like liquidating gains at the end of a tax year, but the price offered was too attractive. Fortunately, this liquidation also included my TFSA, which is now sitting at $13,000 for the end of this year.

I am also relatively pleased I can liquidate these things for a premium on the open market, mainly because if I had to submit instructions to my broker (in this case, Questrade), I have a sinking feeling that they would screw up the tendering or otherwise cause me to lose liquidity.

Harvest Energy takeover finalized

Harvest Energy has finalized their takeover with KNOC, so their units will be delisted as follows, per the press release:

As a result of the acquisition the Harvest trust units will be delisted from both the Toronto Stock Exchange (“TSX”) and the New York Stock Exchange (“NYSE”). The NYSE has advised that the trust units will cease trading on that exchange on or about December 23, 2009 and the TSX has advised that the trust units will cease trading on or about December 29, 2009.

This is an interesting delisting schedule, mainly because if you own the Canadian version of the units, you have a tax election. If you are sitting on unrealized losses, you want to liquidate the shares immediately so that way you can claim the capital losses on your 2009 tax return. If you are sitting on capital gains, you can defer capital gains taxes to your 2010 tax year by selling the units on December 28, 2009.

(Update: I had failed to account for the fact that December 28, 2009 was a statutory holiday in Canada and the exchanges were closed this day, but the trust units were still traded on December 29, 2009, which means the election above was still available.)

Canadian tax rules about year-end selling – Trade date vs. Settlement Date

(Update on the text below: IT-133 has been removed from the CRA’s website. Please read the December 31, 2012 article for further information.)

When you purchase or sell shares on a stock exchange, the current date is called the trade date. However, the actual transaction (the exchange of shares and cash) is processed in three business days, which is known as the settlement date. So for example, if you bought shares of something on Tuesday, December 8, the transaction is settled on Friday, December 11.

Computer networks and electronic processing of share transfers have made the three day requirement antiquated, but nobody has bothered to amend the rules.

One practical consequence of the three day settlement rule is determining which year a transaction was processed with respect to capital gains taxes. Take the practical example of selling shares for a $100 capital loss on December 30, 2009, with a settlement date of January 5, 2010. Do you report your $100 capital loss in your 2009 or 2010 tax filing?

The answer is 2010. Most financial publications out there correctly advise people that they have to dispose of their shares by December 24, 2009 in order to be able to book a capital loss (or gain) in the 2009 year. The trade will settle on December 31, 2009. A trade made on December 28, 2009 will settle on January 4, 2010. The reason is because both Christmas Day and Boxing Day are considered to be non-business days in Canada.

Most financial publications do not quote the source of the rules which governs this issue, mainly CRA Interpretation Bulletin IT-133. The rules using the settlement date was codified in this bulletin in 1973, which has survived to this very day.

As a final note, the USA uses a different system. For people filing with the IRS, they consider the trade date to be the year of disposition. The USA exchanges do not use Boxing Day as a non-business day, so trades performed on December 28, 2009 will settle on December 31, 2009.

The best stock pick for the past 10 years

It is always interesting to pour over historical data and ask yourself how you could have figured this out had you not had the benefit of hindsight. Everybody calls this “the next Microsoft”, but these days, they are not turning out to be revolutionary software companies.

The largest gainer in the past 10 years turned out to be Green Mountain Coffee Roasters. Back in the beginning of the year 2000, they were $0.88/share, split adjusted. Today they are $69 a share. So $1,000 invested in this company back in the beginning of year 2000 would have resulted in a cool $78,400 today.

What does Green Mountain Coffee do? While their business at the beginning of the century used to deal with selling coffee, they made an acquisition of Keurig in 2006 which turned out to be a major value-added acquisition on their part. The rights to the Keurig coffee machine, and selling the K-Cup packs has been incredibly profitable. It is a razor and blades business model, where the coffee machines take K-Cup packs. Each K-Cup is good for a serving, and typically costs about 50-100 cents to purchase for each serving.

The trick is getting as many of the machines in the public, and then collect royalties on K-Cup sales. They appear to have done that.

My only experience with the K-Cup was in the Air Canada Lounge in LAX airport. They had a K-Cup machine and it made coffee, but I wouldn’t have sold my soul for it. The fact that the machine also creates a lot of disposable junk turns me off somewhat. But somehow GMCR has managed to get enough of its razors into the marketplace, and has enough consumer adoption that they are making huge money off the blades.

In terms of the stock price, I think it is safe to say that we won’t be seeing another 78 times appreciation over the next 10 years, but it will be interesting to see whether GMCR can grow its business to the level that the stock price suggests.

How could have one seen this 10 years ago? Nearly impossible. Even 3 years ago when they took over Keurig, instinctively I would have thought “Who in their right mind would pay 60 cents a pop for their own home coffee machine when you can just as easily grind your own beans?” I’m guessing that cost wasn’t the factor, rather convenience of having to not deal with the messy parts of good coffee making. If I thought that the coffee it produced was vastly superior to the traditional methods, then perhaps I thought the company would have a chance. But I guess convenience trumps cost in this case.