CRA Data Breeches Put Taxpayer Information at Risk

An important deadline is coming up, around the same time that Canadians get ready to file their 2026 tax returns at the start of tax season 2027. Since 2020, more than 42,000 data breaches have occurred at the CRA. A class action lawsuit was launched in 2020 and a $8.76 million settlement was reached.  Eligible Canadians affected by these security incidents can now submit claims through the KPMG Claims Portal until February 3, 2027.  

Charities count on our support at year end. Not only is donating to a worthy cause the right thing to do, but digging deep to help others also makes good sense from a year-end tax planning point of view, especially for young, high-income earners.

The Distinguished Advisor Workshops soon to be running across Canada will discuss a major change in reporting or principal residence dispositions that will affect Canadians and the tax preparation broadly:  all principal residence dispositions must be reported on the tax return starting in 2016.

According to last month’s Knowledge Bureau Poll, the existing charitable donations tax credit could be more generous to taxpayers. So said 75% of the respondents, who also gave suggestions for improvement of the credit.  But the tax tail didn’t always wag the donation dog! Many respondents gave to charity for other reasons.

Tax advisors must select industry classifications as they prepare tax returns for their business-owner clients. They will be interested to know that the North American Industry Classification System (NAICS), around since 1997, is updated every five years, and the most recent update was just released September 29, 2016.

It takes specialized skills to marry tax and financial planning competencies to help clients adequately fund tax-efficient income requirements. Now tax and financial advisors can certify to specialize and provide this new value-added service with the newly revised Tax-Efficient Retirement Income Planning Course.

Are you aware of all of the latest changes announced as recently as this month that will affect tax-efficient wealth planning for your clients?