as I mentioned last week today I'm going to talk about the guaranteed income
supplement otherwise known as GIS now GIS is a government benefit given to
low-income seniors in Canada and when I first learned about GIS it scared the
hell out of me, because I never knew this existed and I was like oh my god, so many
people are completely unprepared for retirement and it shows in the numbers
that I'm about to talk about. So that is why I think what I'm doing is absolutely
of the utmost importance and I am NOT an expert in GIS and I hope that this is
the last time that you ever have to understand what it even is, because
you're listening to what I'm saying and you're starting to plan for your future.
But currently right now in Canada there are over three million elderly Canadians
that are taking some form of GIS which means that they're living below the
poverty line and that number is only going to grow. At the end of this video
I'm going to explain like a really cool strategy where you can actually
potentially take advantage of the government and get GIS even though you
shouldn't be deserving of it whatsoever, but first I'm just gonna explain it
really simply because when you read about this on the website it's quite
confusing. So the first thing that you need to know about GIS is that it's
available to all senior Canadians who are eligible for old age security which
I talked about last week you also have to be residing in Canada to receive
GIS and you have to have an income below a certain threshold and any income that
you have will reduce your GIS benefit excluding what you're getting from old
age security. And GIS is not taxable income unlike all
the other government benefits. Another thing to note is that if you're in jail
for two years even though you're receiving OAS,
you can't receive GIS. So just don't go to jail I guess. Now I'm going to explain
to you how this works if you have absolutely no income whatsoever other
than old age security, so you have no CPP benefits whatsoever in retirement. You
have nothing to draw from from your RSP, you're not working at all, and just know
that every piece of income that you have on top of that will reduce this benefit.
So there are four types of people and therefore sort of places where you can
receive GIS. First is if you're a single person receiving the OAS benefit and
that's all you're receiving then GIS will top up your income, tax free by
eight hundred and seventy one eighty six per month so that means including OAS
and GIS you're now receiving fourteen hundred and fifty five dollars a month
second is if you're a couple and you guys are both receiving OAS and that's
it and now you're both entitled to get a GIS benefit of five hundred and twenty
four eighty five a month, so your household income is going to be twenty
one hundred and ninety seventy for a month. Next is if you are receiving OAS
but your spouse isn't eligible to receive it because maybe they didn't
live in Canada long enough, so you're the only person in your house receiving OAS
then you are eligible to get eight hundred and seventy one dollars and 86
cents in a GIS top-up, so that means your household income in a
month is gonna be fourteen hundred and fifty five dollars and
sixty cents. And lastly if you're married and receiving OAS, but your spouse is
not 65 yet, but you guys fall below a certain threshold of income then they'll
be eligible to receive an allowance which is basically like an OAS allowance
for people that don't have enough money in that case you can receive five
hundred and twenty four eighty five a month. So I hope that that was depressing.
You just realized that there's three million Canadians basically living off
of nothing because they didn't plan for their future and I hope that that pushes
you to start doing something if you're not, because you need to realize that
everybody starts at zero, so if you just start saving a little bit and get into
that habit you will not have to deal with this. Now as I said I was gonna show
you like a cool government screwing strategy where you could potentially get
GIS even though you shouldn't be deserving of it whatsoever...