Time’s Up: CRA’s 100 Day Mandate for Improvement

After years of frustration on the part of tax professionals and taxpayers alike, the Finance Minister ordered the Canada Revenue Agency to clean up its act in 100 days. Specifically, the improvement plan was to run from September 2 through December 11. Finance Minister and Minister of National Revenue, Francoise-Phillippe Champagne instructed CRA to fix “unacceptable wait times and service delays.” Time’s up this week and CRA has released an update on progress. What gets measured, gets done. Let’s see what CRA’s metrics show. 

Your marginal tax rate is a measure of the rate of tax you’ll pay on the next dollar earned or, alternatively, the rate of savings on the next dollar deducted.

The Income Tax Act contains rules pertaining to the taxation of income earned on the savings in a life insurance policy. The tax treatment differs depending on whether a policy is classified as an exempt supply or not.

On August 23, the Minister of National Revenue, the Honourable Kerry-Lynne D. Findlay, and the Taxpayers’ Ombudsman, J. Paul Dubé, met with local business owners in Edmonton to discuss, in large part, the addition of a new right announced in the Taxpayer Bill of Rights in June.

Did you just drop a bundle on school supplies and performance-enhancing running shoes? Parental peer pressure from the mini-mes can be daunting this time of the year, especially if Mandarin lessons, dance, and hockey all appear on the agenda.

Last week Knowledge Bureau Report told you about Michel Bouchard (the “Appellant”) established a partnership known as the Tennis Mania Limited Partnership (“the Partnership”) in order to generate funding to support his daughter’s tennis development. At just 9 years of age, the Appellant was confident that his daughter was talented enough to make a career out of playing tennis. What did the Tax Court of Canada think of the arrangement?

As part of its ongoing efforts to improve electronic filing processes, the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) is pleased to announce the extension of the electronic filing season for 2012 T1 tax returns.