Podcast: Automatic Tax Filing - Will It Work?

Last week Taxpayers' Ombudsperson François Boileau  tabled his annual report:  In Pursuit of Better Service: Taxpayers Deserve More.  once again, it was nothing short of scathing, as CRA received its highest number of complaints in the last three years.  Calling our “completely nuts” Income Tax Act a potential barrier, he is nonetheless pushing for automatic tax filing as a potential solution.  A new episode of Real Tax News with Evelyn Jacks & Friends available next week, will feature guest Gillian Petit, Ph.D. - author of a great report, Welcome News for Lower-Income Canadians, but There’s More to Do - which takes a deeper dive.  Consider the following:

Knowledge Bureau's Evelyn Jacks and Alan Rowell, and David Caron and Sean Nazarian of Thomson Reuters will be leading you in this May's Distinguished Advisor Workshop: Audit Defence Bootcamp.

Should you draw from the CPP early? With many new changes to the plan starting in 2012, this calculator will help you answer that question by determining break-even points along the way, while explaining the new rules and criteria. Try it with a free trial!

Over the last couple of weeks, the provincial governments in the Atlantic provinces brought down their 2013 provincial budgets.

Budget 2013 included some measures that would help the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) find and prosecute international tax non-compliance, such as the Stop International Tax Evasion Program. A recent decision from the Federal Court, Soft-Moc Inc. v MNR (2013) FC 291, sets a precedent that strengthens the CRA’s ability to access information outside of the country.

On April 4th, the Canada Revenue Agency released two separate statements in regards to recent media coverage that has identified rampant disregard for Canada’s tax laws, specifically hiding money in offshore tax havens.

Canada’s household wealth grew at an annual rate of 7.8% between 2000 and 2012 according to the 2012 Credit Suisse Global Wealth Report, which also predicted last October that with moderate and stable economic growth, total household wealth will rise over the next five years by 50% around the world.