This forum does not allow attachments to the posts so people do have to pM me with an email address. The letters are attachments.
I understand that there is a wide interest in this, but I am happy to email people directly. Also each individual case will be different and I do not want to be held to account by people who will inevitably fit the information to meet their own ends, when that may not be appropriate. They have to understand that the 25% maximum lump sum tax free payment only refers to up to 25% of their Crystallisation figure. Some people transfer pensions between providers and this does not refer to them or to the monthly pension they receive as income....which must be declared and will be taxed by Canada irrespective of where it has come from.

i didnt realise that I could attach photos and documents on the site until Siouxsie just told me. As I needed to be able to attach pictures taken of our documents, sending me an email address through my PM was the safest way. Lets be clear about something here. I am only sharing this information to help people who could find themselves in a similar position to the one we were in when we filed out 2015 taxes. After being told we owed nearly $40k I felt suicidal having only come out of Bankruptcy at the end of 2014, so that news was devastating. I am not giving anyone the information for any personal gain and if you see the information which has come from CRA and still dont believe it, then you would deserve to throw tax at it and be poorer as a result. I am not interested in trolls who want to put the whole thing down and try to rubbish what I am saying. This has come direct from CRA.

Thank you. I was starting to feel that I had made a mistake even telling anyone about this. I know you have been giving people other advise and this was meant to help you as well. It is hard when you rely on people interpretting Legislation and it becomes a bit like Chinese Whispers....if you put 10 people in a room and gave them some legal jargon to plough through....there would be lots of differing views. Having been a Police Officer I am aware of how much misinterpretation there is. It just did not make sense to me that CRA could think it okay to take money from pension pots in this way....after all you can both win and inherit money....(provided tax was paid on the deceaseds estate befor the divvy up, in the country of origin)....so I thought this wrong and is why we challenged it. I am just surprised that it hasnt been challenged before and people were just paying a huge portion of their Pension pot to a Canadian entity who had no input in the accumulation and it had nothing to do with Canada. I do agree that the monthly pension income is taxable here in Canada.
Hope this makes sense. I am afraid I tried to do a new post yesterday to include the attachments but it came out completely messed up, for some reason, so people will have to PM me. I have aske Siouxie for advice

we challenged this and still have to go to Tax Court on the remaining $8k because my husband was not working, he was fired when he had to return to duty in the UK following his three year career break and in order to retire from the Police. Asked for six weeks and was told no, as was a holiday balackout period over Christmas. But his return to Duty was a duty commitment and not a vacation and he had to work a month in order to take his early retirement. So hie earnings were knly EI and reduced EI because of the pension income too. I also shared his pension as I was on low earnings, so he could not owe $8k in tax on an income of under $20k. CRA worked with his UK figures when they should not have done once they were made aware that it fell under the 25% tax free criteria.