Yes, I wrote a report on this two years ago, which I presented to the finance committee at that time. About 70% of the top 1%, the very high end, have a TFSA, but as Alex pointed out, only about 30% of them maximize it. This is based on 2013 levels, which have since increased. We've actually seen fairly dramatic falls in the number of people, even at the very high end, who are maximizing their TFSAs. For instance, for the top 10% of income distribution, the number of people who are maximizing their TFSAs has fallen from about one-quarter in 2010 to about 10% projected for 2015. As these limits continue to go up, we're just not seeing people maximize those accounts, even at the very high end, but the people who are maximizing them are disproportionately among the wealthy.
The original idea of the TFSA, as proposed by people like Rhys Kesselman, was to protect low-income earners from clawbacks related to the guaranteed income supplement upon retirement, but those are not the folks who are using the TFSA, despite the fact that it is probably the biggest benefit from a TFSA.
If you're making $30,000 a year, you don't have money to save, so it doesn't matter whether you have an RRSP or a TFSA. It doesn't matter what the incentives are. There is no money left over at the end of the day. You haven't seen your income increase in 30 years. That's a substantial problem. While these savings vehicles may be helpful for the higher end, they're not helpful at the low end.