Sell These 5 Things Before You Retire — Or the CRA Will Tax Everything

Five financial positions the CRA will tax heavily the moment you retire — not because you did anything wrong, but because of where they're sitting right now. The window to restructure them closes faster than most people realize, and once your RRIF is running and OAS is flowing, most of these moves become significantly harder or impossible entirely. In this video I walk through all five: the RRSP pile that becomes a forced-withdrawal problem at 71, the mutual funds quietly generating T3 slips you may not have noticed, the appreciated holdings worth timing carefully, the interest income sitting in exactly the wrong account, and the provincial decision that carries a six-figure lifetime consequence for some retirees. I'm Marv — retired Canadian tax accountant, thirty-four years on the client side of the CRA. I volunteer at a tax clinic every spring and I make these videos for people within five years of retirement who want to understand how the Canadian tax system actually works in retirement, not the version the brochure gave you. Nothing here is personal tax advice. Talk to a CPA about your specific numbers. If this video helped you, the one on screen next goes somewhere just as useful.