CRA’s Callback Service for Tax Pros Pilot

Are you a tax professional with years of experience? Have you ever felt frustrated after calling the CRA, having spent hours on hold, wasting your client’s or employer’s time, only to speak to CRA agents who aren’t qualified to answer your questions? The Auditor General of Canada was equally displeased in a scathing report last fall on wait times and accuracy levels at the CRA. Now a new CRA callback service may come to the rescue this tax season. Here is my experience with the pilot project so far:

The new tax changes announced by the new Liberal government during their election campaign have been incorporated into Knowledge Bureau's Income Tax Estimator.

The selling of capital assets is a permanent transaction, one that can lock in gains and losses and leave taxpayers with either positive or negative tax results. Structuring transfers of assets to family members can be just as precarious, without financial guidance from learned and experienced specialists, that is.

At this year’s Distinguished Advisors Conference (DAC), one of Canada’s most respected tax experts, Tim Cestnick, Managing Director of Advanced Wealth Planning at Scotiabank, offered insights into the six types of capital inherent in family wealth, and into using trusts to preserve as much financial capital as possible in a transfer of wealth.

Eric Klein of Farber Financial Group got everyone’s attention at the Distinguished Advisor’s Conference (DAC) 2015, with his counter-intuitive (and often entertaining) presentation on “Unsuccession Planning.”

With 2015 almost behind us, the time is now to start planning your educational calendar for 2016.

Canada possesses priceless resources, not just in its natural resources but also in new human resources—gems that are waiting to be uncovered. They are highly educated immigrant women, ready to contribute to the economy in a significant way.