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:

Knowledge Bureau’s February Poll asked tax practitioners whether CRA should implement the Registration of Tax Preparers Program (RTPP) to track and address recurring errors in professional tax preparation without setting minimum knowledge standards for both auditors and professionals. 

Last week, Statistics Canada released the results of the Survey of Financial Security – conducted between September and November 2012 – and the news is good: the 2012 median net worth among family units has increased 44.5 per cent since 2005 to $243,800, and almost 80 per cent from 1999 – just 13 years ago. 

Taxpayers can take comfort that the “implied undertaking rule” still protects them when dealing with the CRA in pre-trial discovery, thanks to recent jurisprudence.

Tax literacy is important. Why? Because the tax return is the most important financial document of the year for most Canadians and many changes have recently made it more probable that they will do their returns incorrectly the first time. 

Rick Tomalty achieved his MFA-Succession and Estate Planning Specialist designation in 2012, and since then he has attended Knowledge Bureau's annual Distinguished Advisor Conference. We are pleased to have Rick as one of our distinguished grads.

The recipient of taxable child or spousal support payments must report those amounts as income and pay the tax.