Tax Change: Advise Taxpayer About Short-Term Rentals

Taxpayers who own a residential property and rent it out must be aware that income reporting is required in most cases.  Further if the rental was for periods of less than 90 days, expenses to offset that income could be restricted.  These Short Term Rental (STR) rules are new for the 2024 tax year.  Here’s what you need to know based on recent directives from Finance Canada and the CRA, which includes a brief reprieve for some STR owners in 2024:

How much money can Canadians earn before they have to pay federal taxes?  The answer lies in the structure of the basic personal amount (“BPA”) -  an annual earnings amount that is anything but easy to understand; especially since all the provinces and territories have their own BPAs to add to the confusion.  Here’s how to help taxpayer – especially newcomers to Canada – wrap their heads around this:  

If you are hiring family members over the age of 25 you may need to justify that the payments, you have made are reasonable in order to avoid a Tax on Split Income or TOSI.  Specifically, according to the CRA, the reasonableness of an amount paid to your family member will be evaluated based on one or more of the following criteria:

Striking a balance between upholding Canadian taxation laws and privacy concerns is challenging for policy makers and legislatures. On February 4th, 2022, the Minister of Finance released draft Income Tax Act legislation that increases reporting requirements for most Canadian resident trusts. The new trust reporting requirements will allow the Canada Revenue Agency to better combat tax evasion and increase clarity regarding beneficial ownership of assets.

Privacy of confidential financial data is an important issue to your clients and no wonder: Statistics Canada says that about 57% of Canadians online reported experiencing a security incident in 2018.  Do you know how to avoid privacy risks that may arise in your business?  A new online certificate course, Privacy Principles in Business addresses many of the security issues that concern business owners these days, and now you can earn 10 compliance credits from IIROC by completing this cutting-edge course.

We are excited to see you online on May 18, 2022 for the next Virtual CE Summit on Retirement and Estate Planning. Be sure to register by April 20 for early bird tuition fees for you and your team.  The CE Summits are a blended learning event.  What does this mean?  It’s just an outstanding comprehensive learning opportunity for you in multiple components:

This Monday March 21, 2022, CRA released the electronic version of T4002 - Self-employed Business, Professional, Commission, Farming, and Fishing Income for the 2021 tax filing year.  The paper version won’t be available until late April.  The Guide covers pandemic support measures for the self-employed, including CEWS, CERS, CRHP, and government loans.