This Month’s Poll

Should the Old Age Security clawback start at a lower net income than the current $93,454?   

Finance Canada has not garnered favor with the tax and accounting community in replacing the GST/HST credit with the new Canada Groceries Essentials Benefit (CGEB):  70% answered no when asked if they agreed with the launch of this credit.  Some were even quite angry about it.  Here are the reasons why:

Tax, accounting, and financial services professionals are navigating a period of rapid change. New technologies, increasingly complex regulations, and growing client expectations are reshaping how advisory services are delivered. For many practitioners working alone or with very small teams, the challenge is not simply keeping up with technical change, but finding the time and capacity to manage growing demands while continuing to deliver high-quality advice. That is the focus of the Business Builder Summit on March 25, a live-virtual event designed to help professionals shift their mindset from practitioner to CEO of a growing advisory practice.  Why does growth matter? Consider three key reasons.

Is your firm face growing pressure to keep pace with regulatory change, digital transformation, and increasingly complex client needs? Do you need to strengthen the performance of your teams and  develop future leaders to ensure consistent service delivery and a sound succession plan?  Knowledge Bureau’s Workplace training programs can help – turnkey, affordably and quickly.  Check it out:

Alberta Finance Minister Nater Horner delivered his second consecutive deficit budget on February 26. The deficit is large at $9.4 billion, which the government attributes largely to declining oil revenues. The document is called Fiscal Plan 2026-2029 meaning that this is a three-year fiscal pan, rather than the typical one-year projection.

Tax season is back in full force and so is the tabling of provincial budgets. Accountants and bookkeepers as well as other professionals in B.C. beware: your services are about to cost consumers more. And bracket creep is back, too! This month at the Knowledge Bureau we’ll break down each province’s tax changes to help tax and financial advisors inform their clients of the consequences – for residents and those who are moving to the provinces in question – and with deficits growing, the provincial tax news is mostly stark.

When CRA officially opened the electronic floodgates on tax filing season on February 23 this year, it was with a number of pieces of news. Did you know, for example, that the GST/HST Credit has now been officially renamed the Canada Groceries and Essentials Benefit (CGEB)? You get it by filing a tax return and interacting with CRA’s new digital services, which unfortunately still refer to the old name – the GST/HST Credit. It’s just one of those “game changers” that make Real Tax News with Evelyn Jacks and Friends, starting this week for its second season, so valuable to Canadians.