# 8938 and closed rrsp



## cynmach (Apr 29, 2015)

first time posting. Learned a lot from this forum. Anyway, I am retired and I withdrew a few thousand (the balance) in one of my rrsps and closed the rrsp in 2014. I claimed this amount on my 1040 but in regards to the 8938 I am wondering if anyone knows if I enter the date I closed this rrsp on 3.b of the 8938 form? A little confused about the "disposed" term. thanks!


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## BBCWatcher (Dec 28, 2012)

Coincidentally there's another thread about how to report RRSPs on the 2014 IRS Form 8938. The short answer is that the IRS explains how to do that on page 1 of the instructions for Form 8938, so make sure you've read and followed that section, under "What's New."

And yes, "disposed" means closed in this case. So if you had, say, a C$5000 RRSP, and you withdrew the full balance on August 3, 2014, then in Part VI line 3b you'd put the date August 3, 2014.

Continuing the example, suppose you spend C$1000 on a fabulous dinner with expensive bottles of wine. (Let's hope!) But you then put C$4000 of that money into a new bank account at Scotiabank. You'd then have another Part VI (on a continuation sheet), and on line 3a you'd put the date when you opened that new C$4000 account at Scotiabank. (Assuming that new account is reportable on Form 8938. It may not be per Part IV, keeping in mind the "What's New" section of the instructions.) So "acquired" in this case means "when did you open that new account"?

Pretty simple, really. Just different words that mean "close" and "open" in this case. The reason the IRS uses "dispose" and "acquire" is because they're a bit more general in colloquial meaning, and that's useful here. For example, maybe there's a bond you hold that's Form 8938 reportable. (This is a hypothetical, so let's just assume that.) Do you "open" a bond? Well, sort of, but "acquire" seems like a better word. Can you also "acquire" a new bank account? Sure -- it still makes sense in conventional, high school level English, even if "open" is a more common word.

Alternatively the IRS could have written "open or acquire" and "close or dispose of," and maybe you could suggest that to them.


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