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.

The time is now to earn a diploma as a Certified Personal Tax Practitioner. These professional credentials offer you the chance to have a current and well-rounded educational experience and get work in a career that’s in high demand.

Knowledge Bureau is pleased to announce that TaxCycle will join the January Personal Tax Update Workshop tour as a national sponsor. Founded in January 2010, Calgary-based Trilogy Software Inc. creates tax software for accountants and tax professionals.

Knowledge Bureau wishes all our readers a happy, prosperous and healthy 2016.  We look forward to interpreting and sharing the latest breaking, tax and financial news with you this year. As always, we look forward to your feedback and comments on our articles and poll question.

The Bank of Canada has announced the 2015 average exchange rates for several currencies against the Canadian dollar. While some might be curious about how many Fijian dollars or Panamanian balboas one might get in exchange for a Canadian dollar, the currencies we are most often concerned about are the US dollar (1.2787 for 2015) and the Euro (1.4182 for 2015).

There is lots of news for Canadian taxpayers in receipt of German pensions. Ignoring these developments can result in unnecessarily high levels of taxation, or in punitive penalties for non-compliance, in both Germany and Canada.

Separation and divorce are expensive life events; they can be much more financially damaging when tax rules are not taken into account. The recent case of Blue v. the Queen in the Tax Court of Canada, although successful for the appellant, shows how easily the terms of a well-intentioned separation agreement may be ruled ineligible for tax relief.