Investigative Tax Prep: Top Ten Changes to Probe
Tax season 2025 has started with a focus on the increased income levels some taxpayers may report due to proposed changes in capital gains tax laws. But aside from this there are new questions to probe with clients to ensure the family’s tax returns are filed to their very best benefit, given change in their life and financial events as well. Here are top 10 queries to add to your interview checklist:Tax Tip Toolkit: Need Fast Answers to Tax Questions?
Did you know that CRA has fielded over 8 million calls in past tax seasons, often with complaints as to wait times and quality of their answers? Perhaps that’s the reason their phone number has been removed from the tax return this year, preferring to sending people to the their website instead. But when 25% of Canada’s 32 million taxfilers must rely on current, accurate and prompt answers to their tax questions in a very short period of time, professionals will have to pick up the slack. Fortunately, you can cover your bases with The Tax Tip Toolkit, which includes access to Evergreen Explanatory Notes, your authoritative tax research library. Plus, the Knowledge Bureau Discovery Calculators. Subscribe now!
Celebrating Tax Specialists
Tax specialists are in high demand. Did you know that in Edmonton a tax preparer with 0 to 3 years of experience can make $56,888 - $81,231? In Vancouver the amount is somewhat higher - $57,720 - $82,420 and in Winnipeg from $54,390 - $77,665. It’s a great profession and now you can train at home, online, 24/7, to get into the marketplace with Knowledge Bureau’s DMA™-Personal Tax Services Specialist Program, and learn how to use professional tax software, too. Check out the program guides to the six certificate courses in the program, available online and our student testimonials, too!
The Advanced Tax Update Knowledge Journal
Get your desktop Advanced T1 Tax Update for 2023 Returns Knowledge Journal now – a crucial reference for the upcoming tax season! What’s in it and why it’s an invaluable tax season resource appears below; only $395. Order today!
Tax Tip 2024 – CRA to Process T1s Starting February 19
It’s official: February 19 is the date CRA will start accepting 2023 tax returns for processing. So now is the time to mark your tax filing day on the calendar, especially if you don’t have any income to report at all. In last year’s filing season, using stats up to January 15, 2024, CRA notes over 32 million tax returns were filed, with close to 20% of them being “nil returns” filed to claim tax credits. Here’s why all adults – especially low or no income earners - will want to file a 2023 T1 asap and the 9 key taxfiling profiles you’ll want to correspond with early if you are a tax or financial pro working with investors:
How to Report Crypto Transactions on the T1
What’s the value of your crypto assets? How much trading did you do? What’s the tax consequences? Are they considered to be inventory of a business? Or will you report a capital gain or loss when you dispose of them? These are questions professional tax and financial advisors must be able to answer in 2024 when filing 2023 tax returns. Here’s what you need to know:
Back to Basics: Running a World Class Tax Practice
Tax specialists can’t ever rest on their laurels, because of the sheer magnitude of change they must address every year: thousands of pages of tax law, hundreds of new tax forms; and endless new versions of the technology required to transmit the forms to CRA to name a few. Yet it is the very thing that never changes that will define whether you are running a world class practice that is truly impactful: your relationship with your clients. No matter how tempting it is to drop the personal touch, knowing and understand the changes in your clients’ lives, will help you apply tax law with greater precision to their tax filings. Consider the following change impacts:
