Mark Your Calendar: Critical Deadlines for May and June

Tax season never truly ends, it seems, as there are many more upcoming tax filing, investment planning and education milestones to discuss with your clients over the next six months. Check out our handy checklist below and then test yourself – what are the conversation openers you’ll use and with which clients? It’s your opportunity to shine with every member of the household:

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.

There are several tax credits that students, their parents and teachers should be sure to claim on their 2016 tax returns. Here’s a synopsis of them; the trick is to keep documentation for the claims now.