Red Ink on the Prairies

A day after Quebec’s Finance Minister Eric Girard brought down a Budget featuring a $6.3 Billion deficit, Saskatchewan’s Finance Minister Jim Reiter tabled his government’s budget on March 19. Next up was Finance Minister Adrian Salas, who tabled the Manitoba Budget on March 24. The common thread: there’s lots of red ink on the Prairies. But that’s where the budget documents differ between Manitoba and Saskatchewan. Here’s the latest tax news and why it matters to the advice you give your clients.

Learn all the details behind the lines on the 2015 T1 return. But hurry: registration ends Friday January 15.  Designed for the busy tax and financial professional, Knowledge Bureau’s Advanced Tax Workshop is custom-designed to provide the most recent advanced updates from CRA and Finance Canada and to shake out the cobwebs in time for tax season. Ideal for training new and returning staff, too.

The time is now to earn a diploma as a Certified Personal Tax Practitioner. These professional credentials offer you the chance to have a current and well-rounded educational experience and get work in a career that’s in high demand.

Knowledge Bureau is pleased to announce that TaxCycle will join the January Personal Tax Update Workshop tour as a national sponsor. Founded in January 2010, Calgary-based Trilogy Software Inc. creates tax software for accountants and tax professionals.

Knowledge Bureau wishes all our readers a happy, prosperous and healthy 2016.  We look forward to interpreting and sharing the latest breaking, tax and financial news with you this year. As always, we look forward to your feedback and comments on our articles and poll question.

The Bank of Canada has announced the 2015 average exchange rates for several currencies against the Canadian dollar. While some might be curious about how many Fijian dollars or Panamanian balboas one might get in exchange for a Canadian dollar, the currencies we are most often concerned about are the US dollar (1.2787 for 2015) and the Euro (1.4182 for 2015).

There is lots of news for Canadian taxpayers in receipt of German pensions. Ignoring these developments can result in unnecessarily high levels of taxation, or in punitive penalties for non-compliance, in both Germany and Canada.