# CPP Calculator



## NorthernRaven (Aug 4, 2010)

I was playing around with some financial numbers, and was curious as to my Canada Pension Plan eligibility. The federal Service Canada site lets you see your contributions, and your projected pension payment, but you can't play what-if with it. So I tried to do the calculations myself, and I've incorporated this into a little online calculator page:

http://www.northernraven.ca/financial/CPPcalculator.html

It is designed to let you simply cut and paste the table from the Service Canada webpage - it uses the Year and Pensionable Earnings columns. There are various options on how to "fill in" the remaining years to retirement. "Average of entire contributions" tries to do what the SC calculation does - they seem to apply their "drop worst 15% years" rule to the contributions to date. I've managed to get within a few dollars of the value the SC calculator provides.

You can also fill future contributions with $0 (handy to see what you've qualified for so far), 100% (assumes the maximum Pensionable Earnings), or a different average based on your last five years of contributions (may be more realistic for those who have some low percentages in their early years that won't reflect their future earnings).

There's some test data available to try it out, but I'd love to hear from anyone who tries it with their own info to see if they can also match the SC value. Or if there is something similar out there already that I've missed - when I get some time I'm going to look at how to calculate a retirement age other than 65.


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## fred123 (May 8, 2010)

I tried your calculator but get 'Programming Error: Object doesn't support this property or method.' with both the test data and my own data. 
I did something similar on an Excel spreadsheet incorporating the proposed CPP changes. here:
http://canadianmoneyforum.com/showthread.php?t=2634

Fred


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## NorthernRaven (Aug 4, 2010)

Hmm, I'm on a Mac, and it works fine with Safari, Firefox and Camino. Are you using IE? Must be a javascript incompatibility on the part of the wretched Microsofties. I've uploaded a new version with a couple oddities removed (the results won't be hidden before the first Calc, though; hopefully this will work. If someone with IE could give it a try just using the test data, I'd appreciate it. There's now test data for maximum contributions as well, and I've put in the optional retirement age, although I haven't fully tested the results.


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## fred123 (May 8, 2010)

Yes, I'm using IE. 
Loaded the test data and Calculated. Still get an error message: 'Error on page".
Fred


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## NorthernRaven (Aug 4, 2010)

I have access to a Windows machine this weekend. It was working on Chrome, but of course IE had to be different.

I've patched it up and it seems to be working on IE now.


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## NorthernRaven (Aug 4, 2010)

Anyone have experience with the CPP portion of Service Canada's retirement income calculator? It seems to have a hard cap on monthly payment estimates of $934.17, which is the current max for age 65 retirement. But people deferring CPP to the 65-70 range should get more, and the calculator doesn't seem to let it go higher than the cap when you try a later retirement year. If you enter something less than the max it _does_ increase with later retirement choices, but never past the $934.17.

I'm not just missing something obvious, and this is a bug, isn't it? The reductions for early pension takeup seem off as well. A max pension taken at 60 is showing $725, but the 30% reduction should take it to around $654?


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## Maltese (Apr 22, 2009)

NorthernRaven said:


> I'm not just missing something obvious, and this is a bug, isn't it? The reductions for early pension takeup seem off as well. A max pension taken at 60 is showing $725, but the 30% reduction should take it to around $654?


I generally use 60 as my age for receiving CPP and have noticed too that the amount is incorrect. I've completed the calculator survey and commented on this issue but apparently it hasn't been rectified yet. I imagine that most people wouldn't know the difference but for those who do, I am hoping that they too complete the survey.


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## steve41 (Apr 18, 2009)

NorthernRaven said:


> I'm not just missing something obvious, and this is a bug, isn't it? The reductions for early pension takeup seem off as well. A max pension taken at 60 is showing $725, but the 30% reduction should take it to around $654?


 I think the new rules are scheduled to start in 2011. What used to be .5% a month reduction is now .6%.

I am not sure if this has been cast in stone yet or not.


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## NorthernRaven (Aug 4, 2010)

The new rules would make an early pension smaller, not larger!

$725 at age 60 represents just over a 22% reduction, instead of the 30% (old) or 36% (new, when fully phased in) reduction. $725 is just over 0.37% per month, instead of 0.5-0.6%. I don't think it is possible to get $725/month in CPP at age 60, no matter what your contribution history?

I was trying to check my quick-and-dirty calculator against the feds to find errors in _mine_, not _theirs_...


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## steve41 (Apr 18, 2009)

Yes, a 6% reduction results in a smaller pension than a 5% reduction. The reduction is larger, hence the pension is smaller.


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## Hazy (Apr 3, 2009)

Cool calculator you got there.
I filled in the numbers from my CPP spreadsheet and it seems to
work OK.....although it gives me a little different result.
I tried on Windows with Seamonkey and IE 5.5.

One thing though,Don't you need someones birth month to calculate
the first year?
For example,I was born in June so I don't think my earnings for that year should be compared against the max allowed earning for the year.


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## NorthernRaven (Aug 4, 2010)

Hazy said:


> Cool calculator you got there.
> I filled in the numbers from my CPP spreadsheet and it seems to
> work OK.....although it gives me a little different result.
> I tried on Windows with Seamonkey and IE 5.5.
> ...


IE 5.5? Now _that's_ something that needs to be retired... 

I tweaked the calculator to pro-rate the first year of contributions if the birth information is present. It requires a line containing the exact format "Date of Birth: Jul 1944", which is what the Service Canada report produces. You can see it by using the "maximum test data" button - it will put in a birthdate of July, and the contribution years will include a half year. I'll have to check this week to see if that causes any quirks at the retirement end.


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