# TFSA/Royal Bank/ CRA problem.



## dor111 (Jul 29, 2017)

Royal Bank bought Ally bank in 2013 and does not know how to report correctly to CRA transfer of my TFSA account. I withdrawn money from Royal bank and deposited again next year in another bank according to contribution’s limit. I got a letter from CRA about over contribution. Royal bank does not have a clue how to correct it, CRA does not respond to my letter. What should I do?


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## OnlyMyOpinion (Sep 1, 2013)

You still will need to work with the Royal and CRA to clear up the error. You need to provide supporting documentation and a clear explanation of the history of your transactions to them so that they will accept your explanation.
Just insulting or calling them names will not solve the issue.
The CRA can be slow, if you already have a letter of explanation with them I would call and confirm that they have record of it and that it will be reviewed. Try to get an estimate of their timelines.


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## rl1983 (Jun 17, 2015)

I've heard from the a 3rd party that they have recently closed a few CRA offices, so one would expect any correspondence to take a lot longer than usual.


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## Eclectic12 (Oct 20, 2010)

dor111 said:


> Royal Bank bought Ally bank in 2013 and does not know how to report correctly to CRA transfer of my TFSA account.


Did the account number change after the Royal Bank bought Ally?

The way I could see Royal needing to report a transfer would be if the Allay Bank account number changed to a different Royal Bank account number. I would expect that if this happened, Royal Bank would be filing the same paperwork that would be filed for any other bank TFSA to be transferred to a Royal Bank TFSA.

Most people don't do this direct transfer that keeps the money tax free without a withdrawal/re-contribution as there is usually a fee charged by the source TFSA company for the transfer. Royal Bank bought Allay Bank so the transfer/withdrawl fee should be waived.
https://www.canada.ca/en/revenue-ag...t/transfers/transfers-between-your-tfsas.html




dor111 said:


> ... I withdrawn money from Royal bank and deposited again next year in another bank according to contribution’s limit. I got a letter from CRA about over contribution.


Are there details in the letter from CRA that say why CRA is seeing this as an over-contribution?
Do you have an online account with CRA so that you can see what CRA had for TFSA contribution limits by year?
http://www.cra-arc.gc.ca/myaccount/

Do you have the account statements as well as the paper trail showing withdrawal $5K TFSA #1 Dec 2016 then contribution $5K TFSA #2 Jan 2017?




dor111 said:


> ... Royal bank does not have a clue how to correct it, CRA does not respond to my letter. What should I do?


I would make sure all TFSA accounts as well as their contributions, withdrawals and a date for the Royal Bank buyout are listed in a spreadsheet. I'd gather the relevant statements to backup the spreadsheet numbers.

I'd then call CRA to get an agent on the phone. They should be able to see if your previous letter is in the system as well as what the status is. After covering this, I would also ask what form should be used to dispute the penalty.


From the looks of this CRA link about challenging TFSA over-contributions, can you confirm that the letter was sent to the correct address plus included a detailed explanation as well as supporting documentation? https://www.canada.ca/en/revenue-ag...a-excess-amount-correspondence-explained.html


If there is nothing to add and the letter with documentation was sent to CRA already - then the call to CRA should be as OnlyMyOpinion says, to confirm CRA has received it, what the current status is and what sort of time line the letter including documentation will be reviewed.

The key is to make sure that CRA has the letter in the system as received/being reviewed. If CRA does not have a record of your letter challenging the over-contribution, they may proceed based on the info they have.


Cheers


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## dor111 (Jul 29, 2017)

Eclectic12 said:


> Did the account number change after the Royal Bank bought Ally?
> 
> The way I could see Royal needing to report a transfer would be if the Allay Bank account number changed to a different Royal Bank account number. I would expect that if this happened, Royal Bank would be filing the same paperwork that would be filed for any other bank TFSA to be transferred to a Royal Bank TFSA.


Thank you for your answer.
Yes, the error is due to changing the account number by Royal Bank (in 2013). For year 2015 Royal Bank sent the withdrawal record. The record is marked as processed by CRA, but not added to my summary. CRA customer service states that records from Royal Bank are rejected. I tried to ask Royal Bank to send correct records from 2013, but they are resending the same records. In my letter to CRA I asked for the information that I can present to Royal Bank so they will know what needs to be corrected. I am stuck between these two organizations; they don’t want to communicate with each other. They just expect me to solve the problem.


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