Finance Canada Drops Draft Legislation August 15

All professional tax practitioners, financial advisors should take note of an important mid-summer release of draft legislation to implement some of the proposals from the November 2024 Fall Economic Statement, the April 2024 Budget, the EIFEL rules announced on August 12, 2024, and rules relating to passive income of foreign affiliates announced in the 2022 federal budget.  This draft legislation also introduces more modifications to new trust filing requirements. Brief highlights appear below;  technical details will be discussed in the September 17 and November 5 CE Summits and Knowledge Bureau’s certificate course on T3 Filings. 

Residents of Canada must file tax returns to report world income in Canadian funds. That means taxpayers will need to gather documentation to report offshore earnings — and new for 2013, more specific information about income earned by offshore assets with a cost of $100,000 or more.

Retirement planning may begin for you–quite unexpectedly–with the receipt of a retiring allowance or severance package from your employer.  

Year-end is charitable giving time, but remembering to verify the tax status of any organization that you intend to donate a considerable sum to is very important as not all benevolent oriented organizations will allow a tax credit under the Income Tax Act. Last month, a hopeless appeal was lost in the Tax Court of Canada, for example.  

If a surviving spouse or common-law partner is designated as a successor holder of the TFSA either in the TFSA contract or in the deceased taxpayer’s will, the successor becomes the owner of the TFSA.

With the Senate scandal dominating the news, the issue of what is a principal residence for tax purposes seems an appropriate question.

Where a taxpayer has disposed of a capital property and a portion of the proceeds is receivable after the end of the taxation year, the taxpayer may claim a reasonable capital gain reserve for the funds not yet received.