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.

Last year, tax season began on February 19. Tax season has been starting later, leaving less time to file your clients’ returns; but that does leave more time to shore up your education. Now is the time to ensure your team is up-to-speed and ready to prepare audit-proof, tax-efficient returns that save your clients money.

Once you’ve done your year-end planning for 2019, it’s important to know what your tax situation for 2020 will look like. Indexation of tax brackets and personal amounts are based on the Consumer Price Index for September, while prescribed interest rates are based on the average rate for three-month Treasury Bills for October. Although the CRA won’t announce the exact figures until later in November, here’s what to expect the new tax numbers to look like based on a federal indexing factor of 1.9%

It’s an issue that is still controversial. In 2017, legislation was passed introducing new tax on split income (TOSI) rules in effect for 2018.* It’s legislation that many tax and financial advisors who participated in our October poll would like to see rolled back to old rules. Others have specific changes they believe would be more effective and beneficial to small businesses in Canada.

Sales and promotional expenses can be claimed by employees who are required to travel for work and paid on commission, employed in the selling of property or negotiating contracts, or if they are required to pay their own expenses. But when it comes to tax deductibility there’s a big catch. 

Spectra Financial is currently looking to fill the position of licensed financial representative. Read on for more details on this opportunity.

Canada’s longest running conference for top advisors in the tax, accounting and financial services is getting an exciting new mandate. Knowledge Bureau’s highly successful DAC (Distinguished Advisor Conference) will morph into a modern new program called DAC Acuity 2020, and will be held in Niagara Falls from October 28 to 30, 2020.