Investing Series: Don’t liquidate, transfer your assets to fund your retirement accounts instead

Maybe everyone knows about this already but I didn’t, and I’m looking at someone out there to back me up on not having known this either (anyone? ANYONE?).

I have all of my investments with Questrade.

• Questrade: Use my Questrade referral link for $50 in free trades.

With Questrade, you don’t need to sell anything in your portfolio to liquidate it to cash to move it to another account.

So if you have RRSP or TFSA contribution room and money in your Margin account (and paying taxes on it), you can just move the assets and transfer them rather than selling them in your Margin account and then moving the cash.

• To learn how to invest on your own, or be your own self-directed investor, check out my Money Guide for Canadians here.

I am sure this applies to other brokers and investing institutions as well, as long as you transfer funds within the same institution, e.g. from one Questrade account to another Questrade account.

“There is no fee charged to place this request and can typically be performed between any two accounts with the exception of transferring from an RRSP account to a non-RRSP account. The withholding tax and de-registration fee will be applied.”

1. Log into Questrade
2. Click on My Requests
3. Click on Transfer Investments

4. And this screen will show up. Select from what account you want to transfer From and To. Both of the accounts must be owned by the same person and have the same name on both.

“Please note, you must report the disposition on any position transferred from a Margin account at the time of tax reporting.”

Enjoy!

• Questrade: Use my Questrade referral link for $50 in free trades.

Psst!

To learn how to invest on your own, or be your own self-directed investor, check out my Money Guide for Canadians here.