
Show HN: Income/savings calculator for moving to Canada - senecaso
https://boomstick.games/northward/index.html
======
glitchc
Your federal and provincial income taxes are way too low. If you click on the
link below, you'll see BC has an average tax rate of 25.8% on 100K.

[https://neuvoo.ca/tax-
calculator/Ontario-100000#:~:text=%245...](https://neuvoo.ca/tax-
calculator/Ontario-100000#:~:text=%2451.25%20an%20hour%20is%20how,marginal%20tax%20rate%20is%2043.41%25).

Taxes are killer in the Great White North.

~~~
mmastrac
> Taxes are killer in the Great White North.

Fortunately this pays for an extensive social security network including
health care (though sadly not dental!)

~~~
nerdponx
I'd be interested in total take-home pay when comparing Canadian taxes to US
taxes + employer-sponsored healthcare coverage.

~~~
jbay808
I think the difference in taxes are a very minor factor compared to the
difference in pre-tax compensation in the US vs Canada.

~~~
glitchc
It's a triple whammy. Compensation is lower, taxes are higher, food is more
expensive. Only healthcare is cheaper. It's mostly paid for, prescriptions
included, if you work for a company with a decent health plan. Cars are also
more expensive overall (ownership + insurance).

------
nogabebop23
You've got EI contributions in there but not Canada Pension Plan - that's
another ~$2,900 is source deductions per year

It also looks like your accomodation is just randomly costed - there is huge
varation in type/location and this is probably the single biggest expense.

~~~
senecaso
Oh, CPP! Thanks! I forgot about that. I'll add that in.

I tried to comment on the rent cost. Its roughly the cost of a 2bdr place in
the Vancouver area. I would like to expand it to show more cities, and it
seems others would like that as well. I can look at adding specific expense
data for a few cities (probably Vancouver, TO, and maybe Montreal)

~~~
senecaso
Added CPP. Thanks for pointing that out.

------
wittyreference
Handy.

The thing it's missing, that was the big issue when I looked into relocating,
is that my and my wife's jobs _don 't reimburse the same_ in Ca.

That's the biggest impact, above and beyond everything else.

------
downvoteme1
Not to underestimate OP’s effort but this calculator is much better and has
more options

[https://simpletax.ca/calculator](https://simpletax.ca/calculator)

~~~
senecaso
Ya, I looked at that as well, but it doesn't include common expenses, which is
why I built this one, to make it a little easier to get the overall picture

------
paulhart
Need to add CPP (Canada Pension Plan) contributions to the taxes. That's
another $2898 deducted in 2020.

Also, I threw $100k into the EY online tax calculator -
[https://www.eytaxcalculators.com/en/2020-personal-tax-
calcul...](https://www.eytaxcalculators.com/en/2020-personal-tax-
calculator.html) \- and it claims you'd have $77,410 left after federal and
provincial taxes in BC (getting into RRSP contributions etc just makes things
complicated).

~~~
senecaso
I just compared my numbers to
[https://simpletax.ca/calculator](https://simpletax.ca/calculator) and they
look pretty close. I checked the site you mentioned, and you're right, they
are vastly different. I can't explain that with certainty, but perhaps its not
deducting things like RRSP contributions which lowers the tax?

------
alloai
For first year, you can not take rrsp contributions. And starting the second
year, rrsp contribution room is 18% of your previous year salary. for 100 000
salary, you can only contribute 18 000 (maximum is about 22000 something).
Want to know if you have source code, I can help to contribute the
calculations. I've accounting background studying react and python right now.

~~~
senecaso
Oh, nice, thanks! Its in a private repo right now, but I can probably make it
public since there isnt anything I need to protect in there.

I'm guessing most users going into tech would likely make at least $150k/yr,
so they would be eligible to make the max contribution for the year. Good
point about the 100k default base salary though. I didnt realize it was
min(18% prev yrs salary, $27230.00), thats good to know, thanks!

------
rcfox
If you're maxing your RRSP, you might as well also max your tax free savings
account (TFSA) which is another $6000.

~~~
senecaso
thanks! I'll add that.

------
tejohnso
It would be nice if there were explainers beside the figures. Immediately upon
looking at the default page we see a base salary of $100,000 gives taxable
income of $69,015.64. How?

~~~
senecaso
base salary - nontaxable expenses

non taxable expenses = RRSP + CPP + EI (plus anything else you add to the
list)

I'll look at revising the instructions to make it more clear that the tables
below directly impact the calculation. Would that help?

~~~
senecaso
I think I can lay out the summary fields a bit differently to reflect how the
calculation is being made, so its more obvious to the user whats going on.
I'll see if I can do that later today. Thanks for the input.

------
joncp
> I know the UI is horrible. Don't worry, I have no intention of quitting my
> day job.

Actually, this is a nice clean layout and workflow. Nothing to be ashamed of
at all.

~~~
senecaso
thanks!

------
uneekone
It's more important for everyone who's are going to plan to move to Canada
Without saving and income calculator it is very difficult

------
ebg13
This doesn't seem very useful to me. It looks like it only estimates taxes for
you and doesn't do any legwork on cost of living.

~~~
senecaso
Right now it only provides some very basic cost of living, and things like
RRSP contributions. I can probably enhance it by adding the COL data per
region, but I would have to focus on a small selection of cities otherwise it
would be too much work.

~~~
richajak
In addition to RRSP, you can reduce tax by contributing to TFSA.

Just focus on Ontario and BC, these will be sufficient for most tech
immigrants.

~~~
wasalp
That's not accurate. TFSA contributions are only made with post tax income,
the real benefit comes when you take the money out since any gains made with
the invested money will be tax free when withdrawn.

~~~
senecaso
Good to know. I'll add TFSA in the taxable expenses column.

------
tejohnso
Not a UI expert, but a dropdown beside the grey boxes that expands to show the
actual calculations would be nice.

------
tejohnso
Nearly $5,000 /yr for medical, vision, dental seems quite high. Where is that
default coming from?

~~~
senecaso
it was a guess based on numbers I polled from someone I know, then I just
multiplied it by 3, for a "family of 3" as indicated in the comments. If you
are willing to provide a more accurate number, I'll include that.

~~~
tejohnso
If you're going by individual anecdotes, I can add mine. ~$200 for glasses in
the last 5 years. Everything else covered by either basic government coverage
or group employee insurance.

------
CaveTech
Is this missing federal taxes? It's way off for higher income brackets (almost
100% off).

~~~
senecaso
Yikes. No, I have added the federal taxes to it, and it appears to be
deducting it from the total income. Could you provide a little more data so I
can track down the issue you are seeing?

~~~
senecaso
I had a bug where was was deducting taxes from the total income, not the
taxable income, which lead to numbers being off. This is now corrected,
hopefully this is the issue you were seeing.

------
samayylmao
would you be able to retire on RRSP alone?

~~~
senecaso
you would retire on RRSP + CPP (very small) + whatever you currently have in
your 401k + whatever you have in retirement savings from any other
country(ies) you have lived in.

That said, depending on your age, with a max RRSP contribution of 27k, if you
can contribute the max for 20yrs, you should have enough to retire on RRSP
alone, assuming reasonable retirement living.

Assuming you contribute $27230/yr for 20yrs, and manage to get 5% growth on
that account each year, you would end up with about $1m in the RRSP. It all
depends on how much time you have to grow the account I guess.

~~~
theluketaylor
One thing to keep in mind is RRSP is a tax shelter at time of contribution.
You avoid paying income tax now, but you still need to pay income tax on
withdrawals during retirement. For pretty much everyone their "salary" will be
lower in retirement since things like houses are paid off and expenses are
just lower, so you'll pay a lower marginal rate overall (plus you get the
income tax back so you have more capital to build from)

Another thread pointed out it's a max contribution of 18% of last year's
income (which is then limited to 27k), so you need to make around $150k CDN to
make the max contribution.

TFSA works the other way. It's a tax shelter for growth. You've already paid
income tax on the capital, but don't pay any tax on gains you manage to make
when you withdraw. If you withdraw below the contribution limit you can top it
back off as well, so a TFSA is a good place to save things like house and car
down payments (though it's even better if you have enough money to just leave
it alone).

