Are my RRSP contributions still tax deductible if my student loan interest is also tax deductible?
The RRSP contributions would be deducted at line 208, the Student Loan interest at line 319.
As to whether you can deduct both on the same return… The answer is yes. These are two separate credits with two completely different sets of rules, and nary the twain shall meet.
Keep in mind that there is potential to waste both credits on your return. In some cases people use these credits when they already don’t have to pay any income taxes. You can elect to carry over RRSP contributions by correctly filing out a copy of Schedule 7, and then NOT taking the deduction at line 208. Your assessment notice would then give you an amount of undeducted contributions which you could take as a deduction on your return any time you need it.
Student Loan interest, the rules are slightly different. What you do here is save the receipts if you don’t need the claim on the current year’s return. You can make the claim on any of the next five tax returns. This credit expires after that point, i.e., you would not be able to claim the interest paid in 2001 on your 2007 return, but doing this on the 2006 would be just fine.
Hope this helps somewhat,
