What happens to dividends on stock held in TFSA or RRSP account?
"For an RRSP, you do not have to pay taxes on money or investments until you withdraw the money. If you do not reinvest the dividends but instead, take them out as cash, that would be withdrawing the money. For mutual funds, you would normally reinvest the dividends if holding the investment inside an RRSP. For stocks, I believe the dividends would end up sitting in the cash part of your RRSP account (and you'd probably use the money to buy more stocks, though would not be required to do so). Either way, you do not pay tax on this investment income unless you withdraw it from your RRSP. For example, you invest $10,000 inside your RRSP. You get the tax benefit from doing so. You get dividends of $1,000 (hey, it was a good year), and use these to buy more stock. As the money never left your RRSP account, you are considered to have invested only your initial $10,000. If instead, you withdraw the $1,000 in dividends, you are taxed on $1000 income. TFSA are slightly more complicated. You don't get a tax benefit from your initial contribution, but then do not pay tax when you withdraw from the TFSA. Your investment income is still tax-free, and you are (generally) much more limited in how much you can contribute. For example, you invest $10,000 inside your TFSA. You get dividends of $1,000, and use these to buy more stock. Your total contributions to your TFSA remains at $10,000 as the money never left your account. You could instead withdraw the $1000 from your TFSA and would not pay tax on it. In the next calendar year (or later) after the withdrawal, you could ""repay"" the $1000 you took out without suffering an overcontribution penalty. This makes TFSA an excellent place to park emergency funds, as you can withdraw and subsequently replace the investment while continuing to get the tax benefits on your investment income. RRSPs are better for retirement or for the home buyers plan. In general, you should not be withdrawing money from either your TFSA or RRSP, except in emergencies, when retiring, or when purchasing a home. I prefer indexed mutual funds or money market accounts for both my RRSP and TFSA rather than individual stocks, but that's up to you."
There are two parts in this 1042-S form. The income/dividends go into the Canada T5 form. There will be credit if 1042-S has held money already, so use T2209 to report too. "Dividends are declared by the board of directors of a corporation on date A, to stock holders of record on date B (a later date). These stockholders then receive the declared dividend on date C, the so-called payment date. All of these dates are announced on the first (declaration) date. If there is no announcement, no dividend will be paid. The stock typically goes down in price by approximately the amount of the dividend on the  date it ""goes ex,""  but then moves in price to reflect other developments, including the possibility of another declaration/payment, three months hence. Dividends are important to some investors, especially those who live on the income. They are less important to investors who are out for capital gains (and who may prefer that the company reinvest its money to seek such gains instead of paying dividends). In actual fact, dividends are one component of ""total"" or overall return. The other component is capital gains, and the sum of the two represents your return." You probably bought the cross listed WestJet stock.  If you wanted to buy shares on the TSE, I'd suspect you'd have to find a way to open a brokerage account within Canada and then you'd be able to buy the shares.  However, this could get complicated to some extent as there could be requirements of Canadian tax stuff like a Social Insurance Number that may require some paperwork.  In addition, you'd have to review tax law of both countries to determine how to appropriately report to each country your income as there are various rules around that. TD Waterhouse would be the Canadian subsidiary of TD Ameritrade though I haven't tried to create a Canadian brokerage account. "The primary tax-sheltered investing vehicles in Canada include: The RRSP. You can contribute up to 18% of your prior year's earned income, up to a limit ($24,930 in 2015, plus past unused contribution allowance) and receive an income tax deduction for your contributions. In an RRSP, investments grow on a tax-deferred basis. No tax is due until you begin withdrawals. When you withdraw funds, the withdrawn amount will be taxed at marginal income tax rates in effect at that time. The RRSP is similar to the U.S. ""traditional"" IRA, being an individual account with pre-tax contributions, tax-deferred growth, and ordinary tax rates applied to withdrawals. Yet, RRSPs have contribution limits higher than IRAs; higher, even, than U.S. 401(k) employee contribution limits. But, the RRSP is dissimilar to the IRA and 401(k) since an individual's annual contribution allowance isn't use-it-or-lose-it—unused allowance accumulates. The TFSA. Once you turn 18, you can put in up to $5,500 each year, irrespective of earned income. Like the RRSP, contribution room accumulates. If you were 18 in 2009 (when TFSAs were introduced) you'd be able to contribute $36,500 if you'd never contributed to one before. Unlike the RRSP, contributions to a TFSA are made on an after-tax basis and you pay no tax when you withdraw money. The post-tax nature of the TFSA and completely tax-free withdrawals makes them comparable to Roth-type accounts in the U.S.; i.e. while you won't get a tax deduction for contributing, you won't pay tax on earnings when withdrawn. Yet, unlike U.S. Roth-type accounts, you are not required to use the TFSA strictly for retirement savings—there is no penalty for pre-retirement withdrawal of TFSA funds. There are also employer-sponsored defined benefit (DB) and defined contribution (DC) retirement pension plans. Generally, employees who participate in these kinds of plans have their annual RRSP contribution limits reduced. I won't comment on these kinds of plans other than to say they exist and if your employer has one, check it out—many employees lose out on free money by not participating. The under-appreciated RESP. Typically used for education savings. A lifetime $50,000 contribution limit per beneficiary, and you can put that all in at once if you're not concerned about maximizing grants (see below). No tax deduction for contributions, but investments grow on a tax-deferred basis. Original contributions can be withdrawn tax-free. Qualified educational withdrawals of earnings are taxed as regular income in the hands of the beneficiary. An RESP beneficiary is typically a child, and in a child's case the Canadian federal government provides matching grant money (called CESG) of 20% on the first $2500 contributed each year, up to age 18, to a lifetime maximum of $7200 per beneficiary. Grant money is subject to additional conditions for withdrawal. While RESPs are typically used to save for a child's future education, there's nothing stopping an adult from opening an RESP for himself. If you've never had one, you can deposit $50,000 of after-tax money to grow on a tax-deferred basis for up to 36 years ... as far as I understand. An adult RESP will not qualify for CESG. Moreover, if you use the RESP strictly as a tax shelter and don't make qualified educational withdrawals when the time comes, your original contributions still come out free of tax but you'll pay ordinary income tax plus 20% additional tax on the earnings portion. That's the ""catch""*. *However, if at that time you have accumulated sufficient RRSP contribution room, you may move up to $50,000 of your RESP earnings into your RRSP without any tax consequences (i.e. also avoiding the 20% additional tax) at time of transfer. Perhaps there's something above you haven't considered. Still, be sure to do your own due diligence and to consult a qualified, experienced, and conflict-free financial advisor for advice particular to your own situation." Exact rules may be different depending on the size of the investor, the specific broker, and the country.  For both the US and Canada, short sales occur only through one's margin account.  And shares that are borrowed for shorting only come from a margin account. Shares held in a cash account are not available for shorting.  From Wikipedia Short (finance) - The speculator instructs the broker to sell the shares and the   proceeds are credited to his broker's account at the firm upon which   the firm can earn interest. Generally, the short seller does not earn   interest on the short proceeds and cannot use or encumber the proceeds   for another transaction. As with many questions, I'd suggest you contact your broker for the exact details governing your account. The Paragraph talks about dividends given by Mutual Funds. Say a fund has NAV of $ 10, as the value of the underlying security grows, the value of the fund would also grow, lets say it becomes $ 12 in 2 months. Now if the Mutual Fund decides to pay out a dividend of $ 1 to all unit holder, then post the distribution of dividend, the value of the Fund would become to $ 11. Thus if you are say investing on 1-April and know that dividends of $1 would be paid on 5-April [the divided distribution date is published typically weeks in advance], if you are hoping to make $1 in 5 days, that is not going to happen. On 6-April you would get $1, but the value of the fund would now be $11 from the earlier $12. This may not be wise as in some countries you would ending up paying tax on $1. Even in shares, the concept is similar, however the price may get corrected immediately and one may not actually see it going down by $1 due to market dynamics. As far as I read in many articles, all earnings (capital gains and   dividends) from Canadian stocks will be always tax-free. Right?   There's no withholding tax, ie. a $100 dividend means you get $100.  There's no withholding for capital gains in shares for anybody.  You will still have to pay taxes on the amounts, but that's only due at tax time and it could be very minor (or even a refund) for eligible Canadian dividends.  That's because the company has already paid tax on those dividends. In contrast, holding U.S. or any foreign stock that yields dividends   in a TFSA will pay 15% withholding tax and it is not recoverable. Correct, but the 15% is a special rate for regular shares and you need to fill out a W8-BEN.  Your broker will probably make sure you have every few years. But if you hold the same stock in a non-registered account, this 15%   withholding tax can be used as a foreign tax credit? Is this true or   not or what are the considerations? That's true but reduces your Canadian tax payable, it's not refundable, so you have to have some tax to subtract it from. Another consideration is foreign dividends are included 100% in income no mater what the character is.  That means you pay tax at your highest rate always if not held in a tax sheltered account. Canadian dividends that are in a non-registered account will pay   taxes, I presume and I don't know how much, but the amount can be used   also as a tax credit or are unrecoverable? What happens in order to take into account taxes paid by the company is, I read also that if you don't want to pay withholding taxes from foreign > dividends you can hold your stock in a RRSP or RRIF?  You don't have any withholding taxes from US entities to what they consider Canadian retirement accounts.  So TFSAs and RESPs aren't covered. Note that it has to be a US fund like SPY or VTI that trades in the US, and the account has to be RRSP/RRIF.  You can't buy a Canadian listed ETF that holds US stocks and get the same treatment.  This is also only for the US, not foreign like Europe or Asia. Also something like VT (total world) in the US will have withholding taxes from foreign (Europe & Asia mostly) before the money gets to the US.  You can't get that back. Just an honourable mention for the UK, there's no withholding taxes for anybody, and I hear it's on sale. But at some point, if I withdraw the money, who do I need to pay taxes, > U.S. or Canada? Canada. The benefit is not in taxes. When you sell a portion of your stock, you no longer have a portion of your stock. When you get a dividend, you still have a portion of your stock. Dividends are distributed from the net profits of a company and as such usually don't affect its growth/earning potential much (although there may be cases when they do). So while the price takes a temporary dip due to the distribution, you're likely to get the same dividends again next year, if the company continues being similarly profitable. If you sell a portion of your stock, at some point you'll end up with no more stocks to sell. 1) What's the point of paying a dividend if the stock price   automatically decreases? Don't the shareholders just break even? When the company earns cash beyond what is needed for expenses, the value of the firm increases. As a shareholder, you own a piece of that increased value as soon as the company earns it. When the dividend is paid, the value of the firm decreases, but you break even on the dividend transaction. The benefit to you in holding the company's shares is the continually increasing value, whether paid out to you, or retained. Be careful not to confuse the value of the firm with the stock price. The stock price is ever-changing, in the short-term driven mostly by investor emotion. Over the long term, by far the largest effect on stock price is earnings. Take an extreme, and simplistic example. The company never grows or shrinks, earnings are always the same, there is no inflation :) , and they pay everything out in dividends. By the reasoning above, the firm value never changes, so over the long-term the stock price will never change, but you still get your quarterly dividends. Imagine you have a bank account with $100 in it. You are thinking about selling this bank account, so ask for some bids on what it's worth. You get quotes of around $100. You decide to sell it, but before you do, you take $50 out of it to have in cash. Would you expect the market to still pay $100 for the account? The dividend is effectively the cash being withdrawn. The stock had on account a large amount of cash (which was factored into it's share price), it moved that cash out of it's account (to its shareholders), and as a result the stock instantly becomes priced lower as this cash is no longer part of it, just as it is in the bank account example. This question is indeed rather complicated. Let's simplify it a little bit. Paying down your mortgage makes sense if your expected return in the rest of your portfolio is less than the cost of the mortgage. In many cases, people may also decide to pay down their mortgage because they are risk-averse and do not like carrying debt. There's no tax benefit to doing so, though; Canada doesn't generally allow you to write off mortgage interest, unlike the U.S. As to keeping money in the corporation or not, I'm not going to address that. I don't have a firm enough understanding of corporate taxation. Canadian Couch Potato advises treating all of your investment assets as one large portfolio. That is what you are trying to do here. However, let's consider a different approach. If you do not have enough money to max out your RRSP or TFSA, you may choose to keep your TFSA for an emergency fund, where the money is kept highly liquid. Keep your cash in an interest-bearing TFSA, or perhaps invest it in the money market, inside your TFSA. Then, use your RRSP for the rest of your investment money, split according to your investment goals. This is not the most tax-efficient approach, but it is nice and simple. But you are looking for the most tax-efficient approach. So, let's assume you have enough to more than max out your TFSA and RRSP contributions, and all of your investments are going toward your retirement, which is at least a decade away. Because you are not taxed on your investment income from RRSPs (until you withdraw the money) or TFSA, it makes sense to hold the least tax-efficient investments there. Tax-advantaged investments such as Canadian equities should be held in your investment accounts outside of TFSA and RRSPs. Again, the Canadian Couch Potato has a great article on where to put your investment assets. That article covers interest, dividends, foreign dividends, and capital gains, as well as RRSPs, RESPs, and TFSAs. That article recommends holding Canadian equities in a taxable account, REITs in a tax-sheltered account (TFSA or RRSP), bonds, GICs, and money-market funds in a tax-sheltered account (as these count as interest). The article goes into rather more detail than this, and is worth checking out. It mentions the 15% withholding tax on US-listed ETFs, for example. In addition to that website, I recommend the following three books: The above three resources strongly advocate passive indexed investments, which I like but not everyone agrees with. All three specifically discuss tax implications, which is why I include them here. Depending on what state you live in in the United States, your Canadian brokerage may be able to sell products within the existing RRSP.  I have an RRSP in Canada through TD Waterhouse and they infact just sent me a recent letter explaining that they are permitted to service my Canadian RRSP under the laws of Tennessee (where I live).  The note went on to specifically state that they are not subject to the broker-dealer regulations of the US or the securities/regulations laws on the TN securities act.  Furthermore, they state that Canadian RRSPs are not regulated under the securities laws of the US and the securities offered and sold to Canadian plans are exempt from registration with the SEC.  When I call TD to do trades, I just ask for a Canada/US broker and that's who enters the sale for me.  I declare my RRSP annually both to IRS under RRSP treaty and through FBAR reporting. Let's say your marginal tax rate is 33%.  For every dollar you put in an RRSP, you'll get 33 cents back on your taxes, while the whole amount grows tax free inside the investment.  If you can afford it, money in an RRSP generates a lot of free money. No. Income inside an RRSP is sheltered from income tax until you withdraw it. That is, indeed, the major benefit of RRSPs. Note that you will eventually declare this as income. Consider the following case: - in 2015, you make $1000 in income. - in 2015, you contribute $100 to your RRSPs. You store this in an account that pays interest, rather than investing it in stocks, bonds, or mutual funds. - between 2015 and 2025, your money makes an additional $100 in interest. - in 2025, you are retired and pull out the entire amount in your RRSP, i.e. $200. Now, between 2015 and 2025, you did not declare the income from interest. You'd have had to do this if the money was in a regular bank account (instead of an RRSP or a TFSA). Indeed, your bank would have issued tax forms in that case. But you don't report income sheltered in an RRSP. This is good, as it increases the power of compounding. In 2015, you pay tax on only $900 rather than the full $1000. In 2025, you pull out the entire $200. You report all $200 as income (or, actually, as a withdrawal from your RRSP, but it's the same thing). You pay tax on the initial $100 investment (which you did not do in 2015), and you also pay tax on the $100 that your investment has made (and which you are now pulling out). The hope is that your income is now lower, as you are retired. So you'll end up paying less income tax. Plus, your investment has had many years of opportunity to compound, tax-free. TL;DNR: You don't pay tax on, or report gains in, an RRSP account. The bank or investment house won't even issue tax forms, not until you withdraw the money. Its easier than that: employer matching contributions are  always pre-tax. While your contribution is split between the pre-tax and the Roth post-tax parts, matching contributions are always pre-tax. Quote from the regulations I linked to: For example, matching contributions are not permitted to be allocated to a designated Roth account. So the tax you pay is only on the Roth portion of your contribution. One of the reasons for that is the complexity you're talking about, but not only. Matching is not always vested, and it would be hard to determine what portion to tax and at what rate if matching would be allowed to go to Roth.