Every number has a source. Here they all are.

TruePath applies the current year's federal tax brackets and the brackets of all ten provinces and three territories, refreshed each tax year. The bracket and credit constants are pinned by automated tests to the published EY personal tax tables at two income anchors, so a typo in a rate cannot ship silently.

The credits modelled are the ones that actually shape a retiree's bill: the basic personal amount, the age amount at 65 and the pension income amount, each at its province's own rate. Ontario's calculation deliberately includes the Ontario Health Premium, so an Ontario figure here will read slightly higher than a table that shows income tax alone.

Spouses are always taxed separately, the way Canada actually works. The household figure is the sum of two individual calculations, never a blended household rate, and where pension income splitting would lower the combined bill, the savings are shown as an opportunity, never silently applied.

CPP and QPP can start anywhere from 60 to 70. The adjustment is the legislated one: 0.6% less per month before 65, 0.7% more per month after, so starting at 60 pays 36% less and waiting to 70 pays 42% more, the legislated rates published by Service Canada. If you enter your own estimate from My Service Canada, that figure is used as you entered it; otherwise a few questions produce an estimate, clearly marked as one.

OAS starts at 65, prorated by years of Canadian residency (40 years earns the full pension). The clawback is tested against the year's CRA recovery-tax threshold, and the Guaranteed Income Supplement, non-taxable and means-tested, is included for households whose income qualifies.

RRSPs and RRIFs are taxed as income on withdrawal. An RRSP must be converted to a RRIF (or annuity) by the end of the year you turn 71; the first mandatory withdrawal follows the next year, at 72, and from then the projection enforces the CRA's age-based RRIF minimums even in years you would not otherwise withdraw. TFSAs come out tax-free. An FHSA follows its real dual nature: earmarked for a first home it leaves the retirement picture, earmarked for retirement it rolls into the RRSP treatment. Non-registered investments track an adjusted cost base, with only half of realized gains taxable.

Locked-in accounts (LIRA, LIF) pool with registered money and follow the same RRIF minimum. They also carry a yearly LIF maximum withdrawal that a forced minimum never reaches, so pooling them introduces no error in the baseline; when you model an active drawdown strategy in the Withdrawal Order tool, that LIF annual maximum is enforced as a ceiling so a plan can never spend locked-in money faster than the rules allow.

Defined-benefit pensions carry their real features: indexing if yours is indexed, a bridge benefit to 65 if yours pays one, and the survivor percentage that continues to a spouse.

One annual return rate, which you control, applies before and through retirement; sequence risk is explored through the market scenario range (Stress test, Baseline, Strong, Optimistic) rather than by quietly shaving the average. Spending categories inflate with CPI year by year. Real estate appreciates at 3% a year in nominal terms. Education costs grow at 2.5% a year. The plan runs to an age you choose, from 80 to 100, with 90 as the default.

Debt balances amortize from the payment and term on each liability, and your retirement spending need comes from your own Spending plan, never from a rule of thumb.

At the second death the projection settles the whole bill: the remaining RRSP/RRIF taxed as income on the final return (the first spouse's rolls to the survivor tax-free), capital gains on any property the principal-residence exemption does not cover, with values projected to plan end rather than frozen at today's, and probate at each province's own rates, from Ontario's percentage-based estate administration tax to Alberta's flat court fee. Life insurance passes outside probate, untaxed. Every line is shown, and the lines always sum to the net to the dollar.

The estate documents are province-specific too, not just the probate rates. TruePath shows the set that applies in each of the 13 provinces and territories, named the way local law does: a Continuing Power of Attorney for Property in Ontario, a single Protection Mandate in Quebec, a Representation Agreement in British Columbia, a separate Health Care Directive in PEI, with a neutral fallback when no province is set so it never shows another province's document names. It records the hand-off details, who the executor is and where the originals are kept, never legal direction, and it does not draft or file a document.

The opt-in education projection models the Canada Education Savings Grant per child: 20% on contributions up to $500 a year, $7,200 lifetime, with unused grant room carried forward so a late start can earn up to $1,000 a year, and the $50,000 lifetime contribution limit per child enforced. Tuition is inflated to each child's actual school years before the required monthly contribution is solved.

More than 800 automated calculation tests run on every change: golden-value tests pinned to published tax tables, reconciliation tests proving the household total always equals the sum of the two spouses across all provinces, and invariant tests that fuzz the engine across incomes, ages and provinces looking for impossible numbers. The AI assistant inside the app is never allowed to invent a figure; every number on an answer card comes from the same engine, and a validation layer strips anything it cannot trace.

Every boundary here is a choice with a reason, and each one errs in the direction that protects you.

Provincial low-income tax reductions (in BC, New Brunswick and a few others) phase out by roughly $40,000 of income, the range where a retirement plan is mostly shaped by the Guaranteed Income Supplement, which TruePath does model. Until these credits are added, the tax shown below that income can read slightly high, never low: your plan looks marginally worse than reality, not better.

The Additional CESG and Canada Learning Bond are income-tested top-ups for lower-income families, and modelling them would mean asking for household income details the education card deliberately keeps out of a children's savings form. The base 20% grant every family earns is fully modelled, so the grant shown is a floor, not a ceiling.

Probate is an estimate by definition. The real figure depends on how each asset is owned and what your lawyer does; no calculator can quote it. TruePath applies each province's published rate structure so the line is realistic for planning, and labels it as the estimate it is.

And one boundary that will never change: TruePath is an educational planning tool. It explains options and shows the math; it does not give personalised tax, legal or investment advice.

Bracket, credit and benefit constants are refreshed for each tax year. If you are ever using the app beyond the year its constants cover, a banner says so on the Taxes page itself, the same transparency this page practises, applied where you are actually looking.

When a constant moves, it shows up here, so the people who care most have proof the numbers are maintained, not frozen.

• June 2026Methodology page published. Engine running the 2026 federal, provincial and territorial tax brackets, the 2026 OAS recovery-tax threshold and CPP/QPP amounts, with constants pinned to the 2026 EY personal tax tables.