Changes to Paper Filing Disempowering

Last tax season, only 7% of all Canadian tax filers filed on paper. The CRA is pushing for zero. It continues to steer the holdouts to digitized filing by adding lots of obstacles. Most recently, it is removing almost all the schedules from the tax return package it mails. This seems unfair to people who paper file because they can’t afford a computer and internet, distrust the security of online filing and those who are neither tax or computer literate. Here’s what they are up against:

Students and their parents will be looking for new ways to fund post-secondary education this year, as tax relief has been significantly curtailed with the removal of the monthly education and textbook amounts.

On May 5, the Finance Department issued a Notice of Ways and Means Motion to change income reporting rules specifically for farmers and fishers who sell to agricultural and fisheries cooperatives, in response to restrictions in the March 2016 budget that impact the claiming of the small business deduction.

In case you missed it during tax season, several provinces announced tax changes to their regimes. In this third and final installment of the Provincial Budget Roundup series, we will present a brief summary of the tax provisions from Quebec, the Maritimes and the Territories:

What are you doing with your tax refund this year? If it hasn’t yet been spent, one of the most tax-efficient things you can do is to invest it in your TFSA. It’s a short-term plan with a long-term vision: this investment will help to guarantee your tax-efficient retirement.

CRA is providing relief for taxpayers across the country, and particularly in Quebec and Ontario, whose tax filings were interrupted by severe flooding over the past few weeks. 

“Do not value money for any more nor any less than its worth; it is a good servant but a bad master.” - Alexander Dumas