The Lifelong Learning Plan (LLP) lets you withdraw up to $10,000 a year from your registered retirement savings plans (RRSPs) to finance full-time training or education for you or your spouse. You cannot use the LLP to finance your children’s education. As long as you meet the LLP conditions every year, you can withdraw amounts from your RRSPs until January of the fourth year after the year you make your first LLP withdrawal. You cannot withdraw more than $20,000 in total.
You have to repay these withdrawals to your RRSPs over a period of no more than 10 years. Any amount that you do not repay when it is due will be included to your income for the year it was due.
Lifelong Learning Plan Workchart
The amount you withdrew is shown in box 25 of your T4RSP slip. This information is necessary to allow the program to apply the inclusion rules to the taxpayer's income (if applicable) or the amount of the annual repayment to be made.
If you participated in the "Lifelong Learning Plan" during the current year, certain rules limit your deduction of the contributions made to your RRSP during the 89 days immediately preceding withdrawal under the Lifelong Learning Plan. According to these rules, all or a portion of your contributions made during this period may never be deductible.
The minimum annual repayment is equal to 1/10 of the amount withdrawn. However, the taxpayer may designate an amount greater than the minimum required. The program will adjust the amount to repay for subsequent years.
In the case where the taxpayer designates an amount that is less than the required minimum, the program automatically calculates the portion to include in income.
How Do You Make Your Repayments?
To make your repayments, you have to contribute to your RRSPs/PRPPs/SPPs in the repayment year or in the first 60 days of the following year. You can make the repayments to any of your RRSPs/PRPPs/SPPs with any issuer, or you can open a new RRSPs/PRPPs/SPPs. You cannot designate a contribution you made to your spouse’s RRSPs (or a contribution your spouse made to your RRSPs) as a repayment under the LLP. You have to designate your repayment for the year by completing Schedule 7, RRSP and PRPP Unused Contributions, Transfers, and HBP or LLP Activities and filing it with your tax return for the repayment year.
You have to contribute to your RRSP/PRPP/SPP to make your repayments even if you do not have an RRSP/PRPP deduction limit. The amount you designate as a repayment under the LLP is not considered to be an RRSP/PRPP/SPP contribution. Therefore, you cannot claim a deduction for this amount on your return.
Automatic designation of RRSP/PRPP/SPP contributions as repayment under the LLP
When the box Automatically designate the RRSP/PRPP/SPP contributions as repayment under the LLP is selected, the RRSP/PRPP/SPP contributions are automatically designated as repayment under the LLP, up to the repayment amount required in the year.
An option in the preparer profiles allows you to select this box for all returns. However, you can modify this choice for a particular return in Form LLP.
If a repayment is required under both the HBP and the LLP and the automatic designation option is selected in for the HBPSs and the LLPs, the program will first determine the amount of RRSP/PRPP/SPP contributions that is required under the HBP and will then determine the amount of RRSP/PRPP/SPP contributions that is required as repayment under the LLP.
See Also