New: Personal Support Workers Tax Credit Coming Soon

Personal support workers will receive billions in increased wages from federal/provincial governments in B.C., Newfoundland and Labrador and the Northwest Territories.  Those workers in other provinces will now get a raise too, but they will have to wait until filing their 2026 returns in the spring of 2027 to cash in, according to an October 27 pre-budget announcement.  Here are the details:

Perhaps it’s the Christmas spirit. Canadians appear to be putting the warnings to curtail their debt and prepare financially for tougher times on the back burner. This according to Statistics Canada, which just released the disconcerting news that the ratio of household credit market debt to disposable income rose to 163.7% in the third quarter of 2015. That’s up from 162.7% in the second quarter. Credit market debt includes consumer credit, mortgage loans, and non-mortgage loans.

Buying real estate in 2016? Be prepared to come up with a bigger down payment. Changes to government-backed mortgage insurance rules were announced last week to maintain a healthy, competitive, and stable housing market.

On Dec. 15, the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) announced the prescribed annual interest rates in effect from January 1 to March 31, 2016, confirming there are no changes to the prescribed interest rates since last quarter with the exception of one category:  the interest rate for corporate taxpayers’ pertinent loans or indebtedness.

Last week, form T1135 “Foreign Asset Verification Statement” was released for 2015.  As promised, the form now includes a simplified method for reporting assets where the taxpayer owns specified foreign property with a cost base of more than $100,000 but less than $250,000.

Knowledge Bureau is excited to introduce a new convenient, online learning opportunity:  continuing professional education on video – a great new way to earn 6 CE/CPD Credits.

Just how good is your tax knowledge these days? Are you up for a little year-end tax test to see just how much you need to “shake out the cobwebs” before tax season 2016?  Here’s how it works: tell us the significance of these numbers that will appear on the 2015 T1 Return: $2093, $7033, $7899, $11,327, $15,255, $25,370, $35,466, $72,809 and $140,944.