Courses Now Updated to the 2014 Federal Budget

PROGRAM: Tax Services Specialist

Tax preparation is always timely, as it is the taxpayer's legal right and duty to file a tax return for the entire family to the best benefit of the unit as a whole. But from a tax and financial planner's point of view, it is critical to know the mechanics of tax preparation as a prerequisite to tax efficient financial planning. If you don't know tax, you're missing double digit returns in your plans for real wealth management with your clients.

CONTENT DESCRIPTION AND KEY CONCEPTS.

This course introduces a proven process for consistently accurate T1 tax preparation services with a professional client interview and documentation management system, as well as a thorough understanding of tax preparation for the five anchor profiles upon which every personal tax return is based:

• credit filing,
• employees,
• families and children,
• investors and
• seniors.

The course is perfect for new owner-managers who require a train-the-trainer manual, as well as new entrants into the tax preparation market including new seasonal staff in a busy tax accounting office. The course will train your staff on tax preparation services and includes the latest tax changes for the 2013 and 2014 tax years, including announcements made in the February 11, 2014 federal budget. Professional tax preparation and research software (student version) is included as one of the course components. The software is used to prepare tax returns for tax year 2013. Tax year 2014 scenarios are prepared using the Income Tax Estimator tool from the Knowledge Bureau Toolkit.

CERTIFIED SKILLSETS:  The student will be exposed to a broad range of personal income tax topics in common scenarios, each featuring short answer and true-to-life case studies which overview the basic elements of the tax return and the details behind claiming income, deductions and tax credits on most lines of the personal tax return. The student will be able to competently prepare basic personal tax returns.

METHODOLOGY:

The student prepares case studies for 2013 using the income tax software of their choice and researches tax questions using EverGreen Explanatory Notes. For students who don't have their own software, student versions of ProFile, DRTax and TaxCycle T1 software are available for download.