Sandra Nguyen: $14,000 recovered and OAS clawback eliminated

The Situation

Sandra came to us 18 months after her husband Robert passed away. She had navigated the immediate legal and administrative work largely alone — with help from her children — but had made several costly errors that nobody caught in time.

The most significant was the tax return filed in the year of Robert's death. The RRSP he held — just over $190,000 — was required to be included as income on his final return unless it was rolled over to Sandra's RRSP as a spousal rollover. The accountant who filed the return missed this rollover provision. The result was $190,000 reported as income on Robert's final return, taxed at the highest Alberta marginal rate, when it could have been transferred tax-free to Sandra.

The overpaid tax from this error was $14,000. It was still within the CRA's 10-year reassessment window — and recoverable.

The Strategy

Prior-year T1 adjustment. We filed a T1 adjustment for Robert's final tax year, claiming the spousal RRSP rollover that had been missed. CRA processed the adjustment and issued a $14,000 refund to Sandra's estate within 16 weeks. This was the single highest-impact action in the engagement — $14,000 recovered from a filing error.

Beneficiary designation correction. Two of Robert's accounts — his RRSP and a life insurance policy — still named Robert as the beneficiary (a common error when spouses don't update each other's documents). Sandra's own accounts named Robert as well. All designations were updated to name the two adult children as equal beneficiaries, with a clear estate plan in place.

OAS clawback elimination. Sandra's projected income — pension, RRIF minimum withdrawals, and OAS — was coming in at approximately $101,400 per year: $7,946 over the OAS clawback threshold. At 15 cents per dollar, that triggered a $1,191 annual OAS clawback. By restructuring the RRIF withdrawal schedule to draw slightly less annually (taking the difference from her TFSA instead), income stayed just below $93,454. Full OAS preserved: $9,200 per year.

Ongoing support structure. Sandra's most immediate need wasn't financial — it was confidence. We scheduled quarterly reviews, provided a written income summary annually, and established a single point of contact she could call with any question. Financial decisions no longer needed to feel isolating.

The Outcome

The $14,000 tax recovery was the most tangible result. But Sandra said the most valuable thing was something less quantifiable: 'After my husband passed I had no idea what I was looking at. WealthFusions made it understandable and then made it better.'

Her full income plan — pension, RRIF, OAS, and TFSA drawdown — is now documented from age 67 to 90. Every income source, every year, in a format she can understand and share with her children. She knows exactly what she has, where it's coming from, and that it will last.