CRA’s Callback Service for Tax Pros Pilot

Are you a tax professional with years of experience? Have you ever felt frustrated after calling the CRA, having spent hours on hold, wasting your client’s or employer’s time, only to speak to CRA agents who aren’t qualified to answer your questions? The Auditor General of Canada was equally displeased in a scathing report last fall on wait times and accuracy levels at the CRA. Now a new CRA callback service may come to the rescue this tax season. Here is my experience with the pilot project so far:

Death is never timely, yet it comes to at least 1% of the population each year. Brushing up on filing requirements and planning opportunities in the year of death can save families thousands of dollars. Now is a great time to take Knowledge Bureau’s Final Returns on Death of a Taxpayer course so you can plan the after-tax consequences of deemed disposition of assets at death for your clients and their heirs.

"I think self-awareness is probably the most important thing toward being a champion." Billie Jean King

It’s unclear whether Canadians are really getting more from their Canada Child Benefit in 2016 over the Universal Child Care Benefit and family income splitting. That’s the subject of our October poll. However, at this time of the year there is lots a tax specialist can do to make sure your family maximizes the credit.

The 27th Actuarial Report on the Canada Pension Plan provides some fascinating reading about Canada’s demographics and economy over the next 75 years, to 2090.

Year-end tax planning is important in 2016, especially in light of Finance Canada’s release of its Annual Financial Report of the Government of Canada for Fiscal Year 2015–16 on October 7, 2016.

A Notice of Ways and Means Motion to Amend the Income Tax Act was introduced to enact changes to the Canada Pension Plan on October 6, 2016.