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. 

Hundreds of advisors from coast to coast were caught off guard at Knowledge Bureau’s January 20 CE Summit with the news that the forgivable portion of the CEBA loan is taxable when the loan is received.

The pandemic has wreaked havoc on personal and business lives and continues to do so. Those in the bookkeeping and tax accounting services will need to digest and properly report various pandemic relief provisions including the new detailed information required on new T4 Slips – requirements for all employers, by the way.

It’s officially both TFSA and RRSP season.  Both plans are a tax-assisted gift to future financial freedom and based on recently released 2018 CRA statistics, Canadians have embraced their TFSA opportunities.  What’s particularly encouraging is that it’s a savings plan both Millennials and GenXers have embraced; an important consideration for tax and financial advisors who want to add value to these relationships.

Esteemed Canadian tax experts delivered cutting edge personal tax filing information with a “wow” factor punctuated by huge audience participation at the Virtual CE Summit this week.  Over 700 questions were received from an audience of over 350 professionals nation-wide – the largest one-day participation yet.  Here’s what they said about the important tax and financial insights shared:

Will separations and divorces increase due to the pandemic?  Unemployment can be a factor that leads to a spike in separations and divorces; as a result, tax and financial advisors need to understand the tax rules if they see this trend in the 2021 tax filing season.

We love to celebrate the scholastic achievements of our designates at Knowledge Bureau, and to wrap up yesterday’s Virtual CE Summits we dished out some prizes to two lucky winners. Please join us in congratulating them and check out what they won!