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. 

In today’s hot but volatile financial markets, investors are looking for new places to invest for safety, while taking advantage of change.  A new type of debt instrument, Limited Recourse Capital Notes, may fit the bill for some fixed income investors, and tax and financial advisors will want to come up to speed to better understand the structure.   

Virtual DAC Acuity 2021, October 17-19 will feature the thought leadership of 8 senior executives, 2 best-selling authors, leading scholars and top wealth advisors. It’s an online conference experience that tax and financial professionals won’t want to miss. Share the knowledge: enrol yourself and bring your team along at a reduced tuition fee, until September 30.

Sharon Timson is a DFA-Tax Services Specialist™ Designate who has been able to increase the value she offers to her clients, while diving deeper into the important financial conversations. See what she has to say about her experience in earning these important credentials.

CRA launched its new Canada Recovery Hiring Program (CRHP) calculator today, to assist businesses in applying for support based on “incremental remuneration” in the period June 6 to November 20, 2021.  The program will overlap with CEWS and is meant to help businesses grow again as the economy reopens, as a result of hiring staff, increasing pay, or increasing shifts. It’s good news and advisors will want to bring details to their business owner clients immediately.  Here are the details:

What matters is what you keep. As we have reached the 2021 halfway point, from a tax planning point of view it’s high time focus on ways to keep more money in your clients’ pockets before year-end.  A key question arises for pre-retirees in the post-COVID environment:  what are the right next steps if TFSA, RPP and RRSP contribution room has been maximized for every adult in the family?  The answer takes the investor back to three basics:

On June 23, the April 19, 2021 Federal Budget was passed into law by the House of Commons.  It included changes to pandemic supports, including the extension and reduction to the Canada Recovery Benefit to $300 per week. Our June Poll asked our readers if they feel this move is premature, and the answers provide insights to the question “Is it time to get our economy back to normal?” For the majority of our June Poll respondants (66%), the answer is ‘yes’ it’s time.  But it was a close neck-in-neck race and insights from both sides of the equation are enlightening.  Please read on to find out why: