SMES: Carbon Tax Rebates on the Way?
July 15 was an important day for carbon-tax weary taxpayers. A Canada Carbon Rebate payment was made to individuals who have filed their 2023 personal tax returns. What about the long-awaited $2.5 billion Carbon Tax Rebate For Small Businesses? The delivery date and amounts to be received remain elusive, but one thing is clear: many businesses will have disqualified themselves by missing the July 15 date for filing 2023 T2 returns. Here’s what you need to know.OECD: Canadian Taxes Are High, But Unemployment is a Bigger Issue
Canadian taxpayers pay substantially higher taxes on personal income, profits & gains, corporate income & gains, payroll taxes and property taxes than the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) average, based on 2019 statistics. Reflecting the environment prior to the pandemic, Canada’s economy was doing well and unemployment was at 5.7% - the lowest annual level on record at that time, according to Statistics Canada. Women and working boomers seem to have suffered the most fallout from the pandemic, but GenXers were not immune to the economic pain either.
Anticipating Recessionary Pressures in Investment Planning
While inflation is characterized by an increase in prices in an economy, a recession is generally defined as two consecutive quarters of negative real GDP growth; that is, the inflation-adjusted growth of an overall economy. Higher inflation obviously has a significant impact on this definition. The two concepts are a double-edged sword in today’s economic climate and it will impact the conversations you may be initiating with your concerned clients:
The New CEWS Audit: New Risks for SMEs in Canada
The CRA has at least 2,500 CEWS audits of large Canadian businesses underway. It is anticipated that what they learn from those audits will then be used to audit small and medium-sized businesses across the country over the next decade. There is no audit limitation period, meaning that every business should anticipate having to defend their CEWS claims at some point in time. The September 21 CE Summit, will cover this topic in depth with one of Canada’s leading tax litigators and a tax lawyer with broad experience in resolving audits, David Robertson and Evelyn Tang from EY Law LLP.
DAC Acuity 2022: Hear Insights from Top-Flight Industry Thought Leaders
Be sure to register by August 31 to take advantage of the early bird conference discounts for DAC, October 16 -18 in beautiful Niagara Falls. You won’t want to miss the incredible line up of topflight speakers who will bring the future of finance to you in spades of insightful thought leadership. It is the only conference for a multi-advisory audience and the one you should not miss if you are a business leader or owner-manager in the tax or financial services. Consider these critical topics:
Employer-paid Cell Phones
Like all employer-paid expenses, the concept is that, if the employer is the primary beneficiary of the payment, the payment is not taxable to the employee. But, if the employee is the primary beneficiary, then the benefit is taxable. For cell phones and cell phone service, the same concept applies, but the details can become confusing.
Inflation, Inflation, Recession, Recession, let’s just call the whole thing off?
We find ourselves in an unusual situation with higher-than-normal inflation while simultaneously seeing signs of either an ongoing or approaching recession. It’s not a time for knee-jerk overreactions. Rather, the current cloud gathering should come as a reminder that long-term wealth is built by well-researched investments constructed around the realities of fluctuating economic circumstances.
