[Dogger1953]

You might think the answer to this question is a simple "Yes". I used to think so also, but I don't necessarily think this is always true anymore.

When CPP benefits are approved, they won't have your current year of earnings/contributions available, and sometimes they won't even have the previous year's available. This has always been the situation, but it used to be common practice that your benefit would be recalculated once those earnings/contributions were processed by Revenue Canada (after your tax return was assessed). Based on a number of cases that I've seen recently, it seems this recalculation doesn't always happen unless you request it (by phone or in person) and not always even then.

If you started receiving CPP in 2011 or earlier AND if you were working in the year that your benefit started or the previous year AND if you haven't received a retroactive adjustment to your benefit amount since it first started, you may want to call Service Canada at 1-800-277-9914 to ask them to ensure that your benefit calculation includes those last 2 years of earnings/contributions.

If you want an independent calculation of your benefit amount just to make sure, email me at [email protected]

 

[Dogger1953]

It happened again yesterday! A woman had been receiving her CPP retirement pension since October 2010, and she read this article by Gordon Powers:
http://money.ca.msn.com/retirement/gordonpowers/are-you-receiving-as-much-cpp-as-you-should#page=0

She contacted me and asked me to do a full audit of her CPP account. Within a week of me sending Service Canada a request for her file, she received a letter advising that she had been underpaid a total of $166.83 for the period of October 2010 thru June 2013. Not a huge amount, but more than enough to cover my fees, and the real audit hasn't even happened yet!