When the pandemic was declared just over a year ago, the federal government announced a wide range of benefits to help mitigate the financial stress experienced by those who lost jobs or saw their hours (and income) reduced.
When the pandemic was declared just over a year ago, the federal government announced a wide range of benefits to help mitigate the financial stress experienced by those who lost jobs or saw their hours (and income) reduced.
While the obligation to file a tax return recurs annually, that return form is never exactly the same from year to year. Tax brackets and allowable deduction and credit amounts change each year and, more significantly, new deductions are provided for and new credits allowed or eliminated.
Each year, the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) publishes a statistical summary of the tax filing patterns of Canadians during the previous filing season.
Income tax is a big-ticket item for most retired Canadians. Especially for those who are happily free of the requirement to make mortgage payments, the annual tax bill may be the single biggest annual expenditure they are required to make.
Over the past month, millions of Canadians have received what was probably an unexpected (and unwelcome) communication from the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA), in the form of a T4A slip.
Sometime during the month of February, millions of Canadians will receive mail from the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA). That mail, a “Tax Instalment Reminder”, will set out the amount of instalment payments of income tax to be paid by the recipient taxpayer by March 15 and June 15 of this year.
One of the biggest pandemic-related changes in the day-to-day lives of Canadians was the abrupt change to work-from-home arrangements. While such arrangements aren’t new — employees and the self-employed have been working from home for decades, ever since the available technology made such arrangements feasible — what changed in 2020 was the sheer number of Canadians who were working from home for the first time.
Under Canadian tax law, the general rule is that all amounts paid by an employer to his or her employees are treated as taxable income. That rule holds whether those amounts are paid as cash remuneration, or in the form of non-cash benefits.
For most taxpayers, the first few months of the year are a seemingly unending series of bills and payment deadlines. During January and February, many Canadians are still trying to pay off the bills from holiday spending.
Two quarterly newsletters have been added—one dealing with personal issues, and one dealing with corporate issues.