CRA’s Callback Service for Tax Pros Pilot

Are you a tax professional with years of experience? Have you ever felt frustrated after calling the CRA, having spent hours on hold, wasting your client’s or employer’s time, only to speak to CRA agents who aren’t qualified to answer your questions? The Auditor General of Canada was equally displeased in a scathing report last fall on wait times and accuracy levels at the CRA. Now a new CRA callback service may come to the rescue this tax season. Here is my experience with the pilot project so far:

For all agreements or court orders after May 1997, child support payments are not taxable to the recipient or deductible by the payor. For income tax purposes, any support stipulated in an agreement or court order is deemed to be child support if it is not identified as spousal support.

When is an RRSP payment considered to be a pension for the purposes of completing public insurance, nursing home per-diems and other application forms?

Surprise: there is nothing magical that happens when you enter retirement to suddenly make you immune to the trials and tribulations of everyday life. The sooner you acknowledge this, the closer you are to “Mastering Your Retirement.”

Death is one certainty in life that most of us prefer not to think about. But if you recognize that exploring your clients' tax strategies to avoid tax erosion at death will increase the legacy passed on to family and community, specialize in this hot topic by enroling in Final Returns on Death of a Taxpayer.

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