Time’s Up: CRA’s 100 Day Mandate for Improvement

After years of frustration on the part of tax professionals and taxpayers alike, the Finance Minister ordered the Canada Revenue Agency to clean up its act in 100 days. Specifically, the improvement plan was to run from September 2 through December 11. Finance Minister and Minister of National Revenue, Francoise-Phillippe Champagne instructed CRA to fix “unacceptable wait times and service delays.” Time’s up this week and CRA has released an update on progress. What gets measured, gets done. Let’s see what CRA’s metrics show. 

These are interesting times for wealth advisors, amidst new fall volatility*. While High-Net-Worth (HNW) clients around the world enjoyed investment returns of over 20 percent for the second year in a row, increases in satisfaction levels did not correlate with increased returns. This is especially true in Canada.

Statistics show that small children who grow up with the expectation they will take higher education will reach those aspirations, and this is likely the key to breaking the poverty cycle in Canada. The Registered Education Savings Plan (RESP) can help, but governments and the private sector need to do more coaching with parents, because educational aspirations begin with them.

If you are in business today, building on what you have accomplished so far can be very exciting. Yet it can also be intimidating, especially if the necessary steps have not been fully thought out and properly planned for, and if you are keenly aware that in the absence of growth comes the peril of mismanaging the equity you have built so far.

The registration deadline is October 31 for the most important CE Summits of the year! Register while there's still time.

Today is the day that marijuana officially becomes legal in Canada. Yet grey areas remain, leaving Canadians uncertain and concerned about consequences: from personal and excise tax rules, to medical expense claims, to cross-border and insurance underwriting changes.

The claims for medical expenses incurred for travel and modifying your home can be quite lucrative, but you’ll need to know what documentation to keep, because these are two areas that can attract the tax auditor. Here’s what you need to know: