The CRA TSlip Saga: An Update

This tax season has been particularly challenging for both taxpayers and tax professionals. The Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) provides tax information slips—such as T3, T4, T5, and their variations—through secure online portals: My Account and Represent a Client (RAC). This year, there were lots of problems with these portals, and now, it appears, CRA is not being quite transparent about when the slips were actually visible to clients and that doesn’t seem fair. Here’s an update on where we stand now.

Soaring debt loads are a problem for many Canadians and particularly troublesome for those who are about to retire. Knowledge Bureau’s Debt Reductions Solutions Calculator is a tool to help advisors assist their clients with making a plan to get out of debt. 

Drawing up inter-spousal investment loans are a legitimate way for the higher-income spouse to transfer taxable investment income to their lower-income spouse to reduce the family tax bill. For several years now, the prescribed rate for spousal loans has been set at 1% but that may be changing shortly.

On September 13, the Minister of Finance, Jim Flaherty, confirmed reports that the Canada GEN Investment Corporation, a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Canada Development Investment Corporation, sold 30 million common stock General Motors (GM) shares to BofA Merill Lynch and RBC Capital Markets in an unregistered block trade. 

Canadian full-time students in undergraduate programs paid 3.3% more on average in tuition fees for the 2013/2014 academic year this fall than they did a year earlier.

It’s expensive to get an education, so investing in careers that “count” both financially and for your lifestyle in the future is important.

The Tax Court of Canada (TCC) recently considered whether a graduate student performing research at the University of British Columbia was an employee for the purposes of subsection 5(1) of the Employment Insurance Act.