The purchase of a first home is a milestone in anyone’s life, for many reasons. A home purchase is likely the largest single financial transaction most Canadians will enter into in their lives, and having the ability to buy one’s own home has traditionally been perceived as a marker of financial success and stability.
Sales of residential real estate across Canada are, after a slowdown in 2022, once again on the rise. Back-to-back increases in sales figures during February and March 2023 were followed by a double digit increase in such sales during the month of April.
Of the 17 million individual income tax returns for the 2022 tax year filed with the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) by the middle of April 2023, no two were identical.
The fact that Canadian households and families have been living with a significant amount of financial stress for the past year or so isn’t really news.
The vast majority of Canadians view completing and filing their annual tax return as an unwelcome chore, and generally breathe a sigh of relief when it’s done for another year.
Most Canadians deal with our tax system only once a year, when it’s time to complete and file the annual tax return.
For many years, the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) has been encouraging Canadian taxpayers to file their returns online, through the CRA’s website. And that message has clearly been heard, as the most recent statistics show that just under 92% of returns filed in 2022 were filed using one or the other of the CRA’s web-based filing methods.
The obligation to complete and file a tax return – and to pay any balance of taxes owed – recurs each spring with what probably seems to many taxpayers to be annoying regularity.
The Employment Insurance premium rate for 2023 is set at 1.63%.
The Québec Pension Plan contribution rate for 2023 is set at 6.40% of pensionable earnings for the year.
