Ontario Trillium Benefit
Ontario Trillium BenefitThrough refundable tax credits, the Province provides relief to low- to moderate-income Ontarians for the taxes and energy costs they face. Through the Ontario Trillium Benefit...

What to do when you can’t pay your tax bill (April 2021)
Most taxpayers sit down to do their annual tax return, or wait to hear from their tax return preparer, with some degree of trepidation. In most cases taxpayers don’t know until their return is compl...

Paying the taxman – when and how (April 2021)
Our tax system is, for the most part, a mystery to individual Canadians. The rules surrounding income tax are complicated and it can seem that for every rule there is an equal number of exceptions or ...

Last-minute tax filing strategies—the timing of medical and charitable tax credit claims (April 2021)
By the time most Canadians sit down to organize their various tax slips and receipts and undertake to complete their tax return for 2020, the most significant opportunities to minimize the tax bill fo...

When CERB benefits don’t have to be repaid (April 2021)
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 hou...

What’s new on the 2020 tax return? (March 2021)
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, m...

When and how to file this year’s tax return (March 2021)
Each year, the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) publishes a statistical summary of the tax filing patterns of Canadians during the previous filing season. Those statistics for the 2020 filing season show t...

Taking advantage of pension income splitting (March 2021)
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...

Paying the piper - the taxation of pandemic benefits (March 2021)
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. That T4A slip li...

New Quarterly Newsletters (Q4 2020)
Two quarterly newsletters have been added—one dealing with personal issues, and one dealing with corporate issues....