Was wondering if anyone had any advice on how to lower my capital gains tax. I got hit hard last year from my investment account distributions and have maxed out my TFSA and RRSP. I also know it’s a “nice” problem to have, it’s just frustrating and looking at ways to mitigate my capital gains tax bill. Thanks!
Hi everyone, this might be a frequently asked question but I just need some guidance on the order to follow for maxing out these accounts.
I've moved to Canada pretty recently from India and only been here for 2 tax years. I am 29 right now, so a lot of time until retirement. Single with no kids. I started investing in my TFSA pretty recently and wanted to max that out first from I researched. Opened FHSA as well last year to accumulate my contribution room but no plans to buy a house for at least 2-3 years.
I have a gross salary of 96k in BC working as a software engineer. No RRSP match from my employer so I haven't opened one yet.
I am stable for now, but the way things are going in our industry, I am not confident that I'll be able to work another 25-30 years in this field. Now, my plan was always to move back home which is why I opened TFSA last year. The AI advancement wasn't this aggressive in our company so I assumed I might be good and probably retire in a higher tax bracket. I agree, my mistake.
Now, what would be the best way for me to forward? should I prioritize the RRSP over TFSA to save money now and invest the refund in TFSA?
I plan to have a meeting with a financial advisor but I would love to hear your opinions.
Appreciate your support. Thank you.
I’m a 21 year old university student who has $6000 saved away right now. I’ve never invested before. I live at home and work so I’ve been able to afford my tuition and have $6000 extra sitting there doing nothing. I won’t have to touch it for at least 10 years or so. What should I do???
I will make sure I have an emergency fund put aside but I want to put this somewhere safe and with decent return. What do you recommend for someone in my position with no investment experience?
Is it dumb to invest that much all together right now?
Today's divergence is what pushed me to run this test: gold futures gained about 2.5% while Bitcoin fell about 1.5% on August 10 closing data.
But one day is not evidence. So I tested the broader claim.
Disclosure first: I have significant personal exposure to gold and own no Bitcoin. (I have in owned it in the past) That gives me an obvious potential bias. I tried to deal with it by using a fixed rule, checking the numbers against independent data and including the strongest counterexamples to my own thesis.
Method : I used daily closes from August 10, 2016 through August 10, 2026.
This is an ex-post stress test, not a timing strategy. The trough is only known after it happens.
(This was meant to be a graph and is available as such on my blog but reddit dosen't allow me to post a graph here)
Episode S&P 500 | Gold futures | Bitcoin |
Feb. 2018 correction -10.2% | -2.6% | -26.0% |
Q4 2018 -19.8% | +5.1% | -37.4% |
COVID crash -33.9% | -2.5% | -33.4% |
2022 bear market -25.4% | -7.2% | -58.8% |
2025 drawdown -18.9% | +1.7% | -21.1% |
Bitcoin was negative in all five. Its median return was -33.4%. Gold was positive in only two of five, so this is not a claim that gold always rises in a crisis. Its median return was -2.5%, and it lost less than Bitcoin in every episode.
Independent checks
The FRED S&P 500 series reproduced the same five peak dates, trough dates and drawdown percentages.
The official GLD archive returned -2.4%, +5.0%, -3.6%, -7.3% and +1.6% over the same windows. That is almost identical to the gold-futures result.
Coinbase Bitcoin data through FRED returned -25.9%, -37.9%, -31.4%, -58.8% and -16.0%. Exact BTC returns differ from Yahoo because a 24/7 market needs an arbitrary daily cutoff. The robust result is unchanged: negative in all five, with a median of -31.4% on Coinbase versus -33.4% on Yahoo.
What happens if the threshold is only 5%?
That expands the sample to 13 S&P 500 drawdowns.
- Gold was non-negative in 6 of 13, with a median around -2.3%.
- Bitcoin was non-negative in 2 of 13, with a median between -16.9% and -21.1% depending on the closing source.
The best counterexample for Bitcoin was the April-to-June 2019 correction. The S&P 500 fell 6.8% while BTC gained roughly 52% on Coinbase data. Bitcoin does not fail in every risk-off period.
Gold also failed badly during the January-to-March 2026 correction. The S&P 500 fell 9.1% and GLD fell 12.9%. BTC fell 25.3%, but gold did not protect capital in that episode.
Iran is a warning against cherry-picking
The first week of the 2026 Iran war actually favored Bitcoin: from February 27 to March 6, gold futures fell 1.6% while BTC gained 3.4%.
The July re-escalation also favored BTC over the next five S&P sessions: gold fell 2.0% and BTC gained 2.6%.
The latest seven-day snapshot favored gold: from August 3 to August 10, gold gained 10.3% while BTC gained less than 1%.
These Iran windows were selected retrospectively from the AP chronology. They are context, not a preregistered event study. Depending on the week, either side can cherry-pick a win.
My conclusion
If "safe haven" means an asset that always rises in a crisis, neither gold nor Bitcoin qualifies.
If it means an asset that has reduced the damage during major equity drawdowns, gold has the stronger record in this ten-year sample. Bitcoin may have other valuable characteristics, but it has not yet demonstrated gold-like downside protection.
What definition would you use for a safe haven, and what result would make you change your view on gold or Bitcoin?
This is educational analysis, not investment advice.
Sources:
- S&P 500 methodology and independent data: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/SP500/downloaddataand
- Official GLD description and historical archive: https://www.spdrgoldshares.com/usa/gld/
- Coinbase Bitcoin through FRED: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CBBTCUSD
- Iran chronology: https://apnews.com/article/iran-us-timeline-trump-hormuz-war-ceasefire-04da58cbae991183f8b52ef5bf615963
- Academic safe-haven definition: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=952289