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. 

There was good news and bad news for small business corporations and investors in this budget. Here are the details of those provisions and other tax news for farmers and investors.

If you are a small business owner taking dividends out of your business, the federal budget has handed you a good news/bad news story.

The March 21, 2013 federal budget made two significant personal tax changes for younger taxpayers: the adoption expense tax credit has been expanded and for new charitable givers, there is a super credit, plus there is a new penalty for schemers.

After meeting with private sector forecasters, Finance Minister Flaherty gave several early clues to what might be contained in the federal budget, expected soon, including increased funding to catch tax cheats and additional economic stimulus to keep people employed.

March is fraud prevention month, and therefore it makes sense – in the heart of the tax filing season – to know which is legal and which is a criminal offence: tax evasion or tax avoidance?

You haven't done your taxes for a year or two or more – yikes – now what? Bottom line: get on it, quickly, and more important, start a relationship with a qualified tax professional who has taken a recent audit defense course.