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.

Federal Auditor General Michael Ferguson released his Spring Report on April 30th, including an audit on the Canada Revenue Agency’s struggling effort to collect tax debts owed by Canadians in the last few years. How bad has their performance been?

In the House of Commons last week, Ministers Flaherty and Menzies tabled a detailed Notice of Ways and Means Motion in order to begin the implementation of tax measures initially introduced in the March 21, 2013 Federal Budget.

In a narrow vote, 54% of Knowledge Bureau Report readers do not agree with the new budget proposal that allows CRA to pay a taxable finder’s fee for information on international tax cheats.

A decision released recently from the Tax Court of Canada will be of interest to those seeking to apply for the new housing rebate for a principal residence. Wong v. The Queen, 2013 TCC 23 featured an interesting analysis of subsection 254(2)(b) of the Income Tax Act (the Act) as well as actions from the appellants that is worthy of note.

The Bank of Canada unveiled the latest and last of the new redesigned polymer bank notes this week. The $5 and $10 polymer notes will complete the series that began with the $100 note in November 2011.

Employees who leave their jobs and receive retiring allowances should include an RRSP strategy in their planning to keep more of that money.