Yes, I will be 50 (when the withdrawals start next year) and have 8 years already set up in a ladder. I was told by our corporate tax consulting firm that I should not open a TFSA or a Roth IRA because the tax treaty does not treat monies inside these accounts as non-taxable - any earnings received inside them would be immediately taxable. The tax-free withdrawal status was not the issue, it was taxation of the money inside the Roth/TFSA during the holding period before withdrawal. Is this not correct?
Also, the CDs are inside my 401K, so I need to set up the SEPP 72t just to get those out, and once set up the SEPP must run for 5 years or until I am 59.5 if I have understood the rules correctly. The part about the early distribution from 401K is interesting to me - I am figuring with Canada federal and Quebec provincial income tax I am going to be paying about 30%, which is more that I will owe the US. So if I paid the 10% penalty to the US, I could apply that against the 30% tax I owe Canada anyway?
After looking at the CD rates vs an intermediate term treasury bond fund, I was thinking maybe that would be another option. Thoughts?