Changes to Paper Filing Disempowering

Last tax season, only 7% of all Canadian tax filers filed on paper. The CRA is pushing for zero. It continues to steer the holdouts to digitized filing by adding lots of obstacles. Most recently, it is removing almost all the schedules from the tax return package it mails. This seems unfair to people who paper file because they can’t afford a computer and internet, distrust the security of online filing and those who are neither tax or computer literate. Here’s what they are up against:

The Government of Canada will develop a financial consumer code that could better inform and protect Canadian citizens when purchasing financial products and services.

Tax Advisors take note: the Supreme Court of Canada has allowed an appeal from the Federal Court of Appeal (FCA) to decide on when civil tax penalties are in fact criminal in nature, and as a result, should be protected under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

The average tax refund in Canada is now over $1620 – and that means millions of dollars of overpaid taxes are being taken out of the hands of average people all year long. At particular risk are employees. 

Siegfried Merten earned his MFA Designation in 2008 and has remained active with Knowledge Bureau as faculty member and Distinguished Advisor Conference attendee. We are pleased to have Siegfried as one of our distinguished grads.

Doug Nelson is author of the newly released Master Your Retirement and shares these wisdoms for retirement income planning. 

Previously undeducted resource allowances carried forward may have to be reduced under the debt forgiveness rules.