Time’s Up: CRA’s 100 Day Mandate for Improvement

After years of frustration on the part of tax professionals and taxpayers alike, the Finance Minister ordered the Canada Revenue Agency to clean up its act in 100 days. Specifically, the improvement plan was to run from September 2 through December 11. Finance Minister and Minister of National Revenue, Francoise-Phillippe Champagne instructed CRA to fix “unacceptable wait times and service delays.” Time’s up this week and CRA has released an update on progress. What gets measured, gets done. Let’s see what CRA’s metrics show. 

Knowledge Bureau’s recently updated T1 Professional Tax Preparation – Basic course introduces a proven process for consistently accurate T1 tax preparation services, with a professional client interview and documentation management system, now featuring case studies using 2015 professional tax software.

“No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.” -Eleanor Roosevelt

The Ontario government has reversed it's January decision to launch the Ontario Registered Pension Plan (ORPP) in January 2017 regardless of what the federal government does with CPP.  This week, the Ontario government has announced that it will work together with the federal government to achieve the mutual goal of improving pensions.

Families who wish to maximize the anticipated new Child Tax Benefit (CTB) for 2016/2017 have less than two weeks left to reduce 2015 net income using an RRSP contribution. The deadline is February 29. For these reasons, Knowledge Bureau has updated its Income Tax Estimator to assist with the calculations.

A tell-tale sign the federal budget is right around the corner was the February 12 meeting of the Finance Minister with private sector economists for their forecasts on the Canadian and global economies. This this year, a number of significant tax changes are expected, if the newly elected Liberal government’s election platforms are implemented.

On February 5, the Finance Minister announced that Canada and Switzerland have signed a Joint Declaration which will see the two countries exchange financial account information automatically. With this agreement, CRA expects to curb tax evasion by Canadian residents who earn income in Switzerland but do not report it on their Canadian tax returns.