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. 

Three-quarters (74 per cent) of Canadian post-secondary students believe they will need to supplement their schooling with more training after graduation, despite already spending on average $14,000 each year and expecting to owe $30,000 in debt by the time they complete their current program.

Advisors, inform your clients that they may receive letters from their financial institutions that they need to respond to, and it’s not a phishing scam.

It’s a well-known fact that the next decade will see an enormous amount of money transferred from one generation to the next in Canada. According to a 2016 CIBC study, there is $750 billion at stake. Your clients, and your high-net-worth clients in particular, will be looking to you to help them preserve their family wealth, if they aren’t already.

“I think self-awareness is probably the most important thing toward being a champion.” —Billie Jean King

From cell phones to airplanes, building and coins, ore is indispensable in modern life; but, like many other outputs, the work people do to bring it to market is being impacted by the A.I. Revolution. Similar disruptive changes affect the advice tax and financial advisors give their clients.

Join our online discussion: When changes in the industry force professionals to adapt, should we call them threats, or are they opportunities?