I would not put the bond allocation in a TFSA. It should be divided among the RRSP accounts, or if you want to use your taxable account you can go with HBB.TO, a highly tax efficient bond index that uses a swap contract with National Bank.
I can't remember how much you are saving per year, but with the new higher TFSA you may want to put both REIT and Canadian stocks in these accounts.
Thanks! Why shouldn't bonds be in a TFSA? I thought it was important for US equities to be in RRSP to avoid the 15% withholding tax, so that is why I allocated a bunch to that. I could flip flop it so that bonds are in our joint taxable and Canadian equities are in his TFSA. I know Canadian equities are pretty tax efficient, but I don't know how I would go about calculating whether that would make more sense or not. Thank you for recommending HBB, I'll look into it.
Well it's just that TFSAs are never taxed on growth again, so it's a fantastic account for higher growth investments. Bonds are likely to have low returns in medium term so by investing bonds in a TFSA you are not going to get much growth.
Canadian stocks are quite tax efficient in your cash account, but not as tax efficient as a TFSA. You are better off paying no tax than a small amount of tax.
HBB.TO could be the best choice for bonds in a cash account because all returns are taxed as capital gains only (you don't get distributions such as interest income). Capital gains tax is very efficient and will be negligible on a 3-4% rate of return.
I would say the easiest way to decide where to put your Canadian stocks depends on your future income level and whether or not you are indexing. If you are investing in dividend paying common stocks and your income is low enough so result in negative tax rates on dividends then invest in the cash account. If not, put it in TFSA and use HBB.TO in cash account/ other bond index in RRSP.
As for your US stocks, are you investing via a US dollar RRSP. The withholding tax is
only saved if you buy ETFs that are listed on New York exchanges. So if you are buying one like VFV.TO or VUN.TO you will still be paying the withholding tax.