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:

It’s time to put your professional education plan in place and to map out how you will achieve your CE/CPD credits this fall.

Are the proposed costs of the new CPP increasingly unsustainable? Are they the answer to retirement security for Canadians?

Estate Planning with Life Insurance is an important cornerstone of family wealth planning, but with recent tax changes, a professional update is required for any tax and financial advisor working with high-net-worth families.

"The function of education is to teach one to think intensively and to think critically. Intelligence plus character - that is the goal of true education." Martin Luther King, Jr.

Electronic filing is all the rage in Canada, as close to 750,000 more people chose to file their returns electronically in the 2016 tax filing season, for the 2015 T1 returns. One compelling reason: the average tax refund of $1678 hits your bank account sooner when professionals use EFILE or individuals use NETFILE. Close to 10 million people had those cheques electronically deposited.

In case you missed it, Finance Canada released draft legislation for consultation on July 29, the Friday of the August long weekend. Responses must be received by September 27. Of particular interest to investors: the implementation date for new taxation on switches in corporate-class mutual funds appears to be pushed back to January 1, 2017. And there’s much more than that to be aware of.