Back to School Tax Breaks

Like tax season, back-to-school season rolls around annually with certainty. But in today’s inflationary environment, the start-up costs for getting the family organizing for the school year may seem daunting. The good news is that tax and financial advisors can help clients understand their tax planning options and manage all the receipts that can lead to tax breaks later in the spring during tax filing time. Here’s a primer of topics you may wish to discuss:

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!

In the midst of many provinces facing increased lockdown measures, the CRA has released new information, documentation and resources about Canada Emergency Response Benefit repayment and taxation. It has the potential to both aid and add to the complexity and confusion many are facing, particularly when it comes to the CERB.  Here is what you need to know:

Employees who use a cell phone in their work may be wondering about claiming costs as an employment expense.  CRA has some very complex rules to accompany the issue and  both employers and employees should be aware of them.  Here is a primer:

It turns out that the 74% of our December poll respondents who answered no to our question “Do you think that Canada is headed towards strong economic recovery in 2021?” were right: Canada is not yet poised for a strong economic recovery.  We’ll report on some of their reasons why, but also take note of new economic data.