Finance Canada Releases Draft Legislation January 29

February 27, 2026 is the last date to comment on a raft of draft legislation released at the end of January covering provisions from the November 4, 2025 Federal budget,  the Fall 2024 Economic Statement, amendments from Budget 2021 regarding Hybrid Mismatching Arrangements, technical changes to two investment tax credits, dating back to 2022 and 2023, as well as corporate changes regarding the Global Minimum Tax.  The key measures to note appear below:

In this final month of the first quarter of 2024, significant new tax filing milestones arise, but with a twist, because both March 30 and 31 are on a weekend and April 1 is a Monday.  For these reasons it’s important for tax and financial specialists to step up the tax filing conversation on critical issues like any potential RRSP excess contributions and everything related to trusts!  Here are the significant dates to know for March and April:

It’s Provincial Budget Time! First out of the gate on February 22, the BC government introduced a substantive budget which introduces a BC Family Benefit Bonus, increases the Climate Action Tax Credit, extends training tax credits, exempts farmers from participating in provincial agricultural insurance programs and most important, changes the taxation of real estate in the province, and introduces a new Home Flipping for 2025.  This is a substantive matter to discuss with clients during tax season 2024. Details follow:

February 29 was the date that compelled three provinces to release their 2024 provincial budgets:  Nunavut, Alberta and Nova Scotia.  Here are the tax highlights:

The Parliamentary Budget Officer released its projections and summary of Canada’s fiscal outlook on March 7, noting  “while total budgetary authorities are increasing in this year's Main Estimates, the pace of growth in the 2024-25 Main Estimates has slowed compared to the pandemic years” and that  “. . .  for the first time since the pandemic, voted budgetary authorities have decreased compared to previous years’ Main Estimate.”  The fly in the ointment is that those authorities still remain “roughly 50 per cent higher than in the pre-pandemic 2019-20 Main Estimates” and do not include new spending to be announced in the April 16 budget.  The PBO fiscal outlook follows:

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In February we asked KBR readers to weigh in on the following poll question: “The RRSP deadline for the 2023 tax year is February 29. From a wealth planning perspective, do you think middle aged Canadians should invest in a TFSA instead?”. The opinions were mixed with 64% answering “yes” in favour of the TFSA over the RRSP. As always, the important details are in the insightful comments left by our readers from the tax, accounting and financial services, and many pointed out it depends on “Know Your Client”.  Check them out: