I mistakenly over-contributed to my TFSA and was penalized. I appealed in March and CRA finally responded.

You are free to deposit and withdraw as many times as you like from a TFSA. There's no penalty for withdrawing or having lots of transactions, just contributing more than you are allowed.

The main caveat with withdrawing is that that contribution room is not returned to you until the following year. So if you deposit $5000, withdraw $2500 and put it back. You've still contributed $7500 for this year. As soon as Jan 1st rolls around, you'll be able to add that $2500 back as well as your newly earned contribution room.

This works for moving money from one TFSA account to another as well. Unless you submit the proper forms and go through an official transfer process, trying to manually move money from one TFSA account to another will temporarily eat up your contribution room.

/r/PersonalFinanceCanada Thread Parent