When you start making withdrawals from the registered plans, it’s important to cross check - you want to ensure all he money withdrawn was actually deposited to your bank account.
I know that sounds ridiculous, but hey, maybe this story will help you understand why I'd bother.
I uncovered an employee bank fraud scheme several years ago, where the daughter didn’t receive the cheque for funds removed from her dad’s RRIF after date of death.
A bank employee removed the funds after death, the regular amount, ignoring that she'd provided a death certificate, which should have stopped all payments until instructions were issued.
The bank employee sent a cheque, very conveniently mailed to her old address even though she'd gone in to change the address and that was on file at the bank.
When the mail was returned to sender, they set that money aside in a holding account, and didn’t put it back into the account. It was for almost $10,000.
If we hadn’t called the bank's fraud investigator, the money would have been gone.
If you weren't watching for something like this, you would have just included the income in his final return at fair market value. Then, when the RRIF was paid out to the beneficiary, whatever they received, why would they check against what was filed on the final return, especially if they weren't privy to that return?
If there was a difference, who would reconcile? They'd just be happy they got money they didn't have before.
That’s just one reason (one of money) for to keep records of client's investment accounts before and after date of death until final distribution, for both investments included in the probate, and for investments paid directly to the beneficiary. Not only is it a good practice to prevent fraud like this, but at the end, when you go to request the TX19 Clearance Certificate, you'll find it's necessary to do the accounting.
Why start at the end when it's much easier to do it as you go along? This is why using Quicken H&B to track your investments and your money makes total sense.
I can help you with that. There's a series of 4 videos (4 hours total) for sale in my shopping cart that explain how to get started and how to reconcile your investments and your money.
