TORONTO - A survey from the Bank of Montreal (TSX:BMO) suggests fewer Canadians were contributing to their RRSP this year, but that contributions were higher than recent years.
The survey, conducted in the final week before the March 2 deadline, found 57 per cent of Canadians had made an RRSP contribution for the 2014 tax year.
That was down from 65 per cent for the 2013 tax year and 62 per cent the year before that. But the average contribution, at $3,737, was up about $200 from the two previous years.
According to the survey, of those who planned on receiving a tax refund after making an RRSP contribution, 34 per cent planned on saving or investing the money.
Of the others, 15 per cent said they would pay down their mortgage, 13 per cent planned to use the money for home renovations and 11 per cent planned on using their refund for travel or to purchase leisure items.
The survey was conducted Feb. 24-25 by Pollara with an online sample of 1,002 Canadians 18 years of age and over. The polling industry's professional body, the Marketing Research and Intelligence Association, says online surveys cannot be assigned a margin of error because they do not randomly sample the population.
