Certification record

What is certified

One thing: the engine's arithmetic. Before each release, an automated test suite runs the contribution-room engine against a locked reference model built from the CRA's published rules for the 2026 tax year. Every figure the engine produces has to match that model to the exact cent. If a single number is off by a cent, the release does not ship. That test, not a slogan, is what "formula-certified" and "audit-grade" refer to on this site.

What the tests pin down

The suite goes past the easy cases. These are the rules it holds the engine to, each cited to the CRA page that states the rule.

TFSA withdrawals and re-contributions. Withdraw from a TFSA and that room does not return until January 1 (the CRA's TFSA contribution rules). The tests also pin the asymmetry inside that rule: if you are over-contributed, a withdrawal shrinks the taxable excess immediately, even though the room itself still waits for January 1. The engine models both directions, and the tests fail if either one drifts.

One worked example. Say your cumulative TFSA room is $109,000 (the 2026 maximum since 2009) and you have contributed all of it. Withdraw $4,000 in June and re-contribute it before January 1: the engine flags a $4,000 excess, because that room does not reopen until the new year. Had you instead been $4,000 over-contributed, the same withdrawal would have erased the excess immediately. Same withdrawal, opposite effect, depending on which side of the room you are on. The tests fail if the engine gets that backwards.

RRSP room and pension adjustments. The engine applies the year's dollar cap on new RRSP room and floors the pension-adjustment reduction, so an employer pension can reduce new room to zero but never erodes the room you carried forward from earlier years (the CRA on RRSPs and related plans). The tests feed the engine hostile inputs to hold that floor.

FHSA room, narrowly. The engine models the opening-year clock and the room arithmetic: $8,000 of new room a year, and at most $8,000 of unused room carried forward (the CRA on first home savings accounts). One honest limit: the rules for when an FHSA must be closed, the participation window, are not modelled. The engine tracks your contribution room; it does not plan your account's end date. Check the CRA page above, or a professional, for that.

The hash

"Hash-verified" is the provenance half of the claim. Every release of the app carries a SHA-256 hash of its built bundle, recorded against the certified release it was built from. Change the code and the hash no longer matches, and anyone holding the release can detect the mismatch. It is a checksum, not a promise.

What certification does not mean

Not tax advice. "Certified" here means the engine's output matches the CRA's published rules in the automated tests described above. It does not mean a professional accounting body has audited the engine, and it does not make any number the engine produces advice for your situation. The person who builds and certifies the engine is not a Chartered Professional Accountant. Verify anything that matters against the CRA before you act on it.

Who answers for it

A certification is only as good as the person accountable for it. That is me: Mo Kechout, Calgary. If a figure the engine produces does not match the CRA's published rules, email [email protected]. I fix the engine, re-run the certification, and note the correction on this page.

That's the whole claim, and where it stops. The TFSA calculator this record certifies is free to try.