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. 

In today’s tax and economic climate, multi-generational planning faces new risks and  understanding the opportunities in the management of corporate investments is a huge issue. Uncover the latent potential in these resources for investment and retirement planning by joining John Natale, AVP Tax, Retirement & Estate Planning Services, at DAC this November 6 – 9 in San Diego.

"Perseverance is failing 19 times and succeeding the 20th." Julie Andrews

Your client, a financial advisor himself, is retiring from his practice and therefore selling non-financial assets, financial assets, real estate assets and a business. Where will the tax be paid and how much will be paid in the hands of the individuals, corporations or trusts involved?

It’s amazing how many people rush through their tax filing obligations only to find they have missed important claims on their tax returns. One of the most common is medical expenses. Here is our top ten list of common medical treatments you may have missed.

“Investing is simple, but it isn’t easy.” I’ve heard Warren Buffett, the world’s undisputed champion of value investing, say words to this effect so often—most recently at a Berkshire Hathaway annual meeting that brought 40,000 of us (me for the 21st time) to Omaha, Nebraska (of all places), on the last Saturday in April of 2016.

A reality for retirement income planning specialists is that the difficult subject of “disability probability” must come up. But, the best time to discuss it with clients is when they are still healthy. According to Statistics Canada1  close to 4 million adults had a disability which limited daily living activities in 2012, or about 14% of Canada’s population.