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 week’s KBR reported on a recent Statistics Canada study, Changes in Debt and Assets of Canadian Families, 1999 to 2012, that confirmed a trend that Canadians are carrying more debt than ever before.

There are three certainties in life – death, taxes and change.  So, dealing with the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) can prove a stressful interaction for both taxpayers and their advisors.  

David Christianson, one of Canada’s Top 50 Wealth Advisors and this month’s featured guest speaker at DAW, says tax or financial advisors have the obligation to make critical conversations about what really matters our clients in the future, happen.

Canada’s tax system is based on self-assessment, but CRA has substantial powers and latitude to assess and reassess those returns as it sees fit, leaving the onus to prove otherwise with the taxpayer.

The government’s financial results will be released for the first quarter of the year no later than May 29, 2015, just in time for Canada’s most comprehensive 2015 tax and wealth planning workshop, featuring five top experts in the area of transition planning.

June 15 is the date of the next quarterly instalment payment for 2015.