While the need for charitable donations for any number of causes is a year-round reality, appeals for such donations tend to increase as the holiday season and the end of the calendar year approach. A...
Residents of the eight Canadian provinces in which the federal fuel charge (more commonly known as the federal carbon tax) is levied are entitled to claim and receive the federal Canada Carbon Rebate ...
The Old Age Security (OAS) program is one of the two major federal benefit programs available to older Canadians – the other being the Canada Pension Plan (CPP). While both programs provide taxable ...
In the 2024-25 Federal Budget released earlier this year, the federal government announced changes to the rules which govern mortgage lending in Canada. Those changes had two goals: making it easier f...
Two quarterly newsletters have been added – one dealing with personal issues, and one dealing with corporate issues....
While the current state of the Canadian health care system is far from perfect, Canadians are nonetheless fortunate to have a publicly funded health care system, in which most major medical expenses a...
The federal government provides a number of non-refundable tax credits and benefits to Canadians under the umbrella term “child and family benefits”, but likely the most widely available and most...
Canada’s tax system is a self-assessing one, meaning that the onus rests on individual taxpayers to file their annual return each spring and to pay any amounts owed. The compliance rate in Canada is...
The past five years have been a tough financial slog for most Canadian families, as they struggled to cope with the pandemic, followed by inflation which tripled from under 2% in mid-2020 to over 6% b...
Members of the baby boom generation who were born between 1946 and 1965 are now between 59 and 78 years of age, and make up about a quarter of the Canadian population. Many, if not most, are now retir...
In most cases, the need to seek out and obtain legal services (and to pay for them) is associated with life’s more unwelcome occurrences and experiences – a divorce, a dispute over a family estate...
By the middle of August, most students who are beginning post-secondary education this fall have hopefully received an offer of admission from their college or university of choice and are in the fina...
During the 2024 calendar year, hundreds of thousands of Canadians will reach their 71st birthday, and a significant percentage of that group are likely to have saved money for retirement through a reg...
Most Canadians contemplate retirement with a mixture of anticipation and trepidation. While the benefits of an end to the day-to-day grind of work and commuting (while also having more free time to sp...
By the time summer arrives, nearly all Canadians have filed their income tax returns for the previous year, have received a Notice of Assessment from the tax authorities with respect to that return, a...
By this time of the year, virtually all Canadian residents have filed their income tax return for 2023 and have received the Notice of Assessment issued by the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) with respect...
Most Canadians, understandably, think of our income tax system as a government “program” that takes money out of their paycheques and out of their pockets. And, while it’s certainly true that vi...
Two quarterly newsletters have been added – one dealing with personal issues, and one dealing with corporate issues....
The Canadian tax system is a “self-assessing” one, in which taxpayers are expected (and, in most cases, required) to file an individual income tax return each spring. On that return the taxpayer p...
As the school year draws to a close, the thoughts of millions of Canadian parents turn to the question of how to find – and pay for – child care throughout the summer months. While many Canadians ...
Each spring and summer, tens of thousands of Canadian families sell their homes and move – sometimes to a bigger and better property in the same town or city, and sometimes to a new city or even ano...
Many (if not most) taxpayers think of tax planning as a year-end exercise, one to be carried out in the last few weeks of the year, in order to take the steps needed to minimize the tax bill for that ...
Most retired Canadians receive income from two government-sponsored retirement income programs – the Canada Pension Plan (CPP) and the Old Age Security (OAS) program. While benefits from both are pa...
This year, the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) will receive and process more than 30 million individual income tax returns for the 2023 tax year. No two of those returns will be identical, as each such re...
For the majority of Canadians, the due date for filing of an individual tax return for the 2023 tax year was Tuesday April 30, 2024. (Self-employed Canadians and their spouses have until Monday June 1...
As everyone knows, buying one’s first home – achieving that elusive first step on to the “property ladder” – has always presented a challenge, and that challenge has rarely been greater than...
Most Canadians rarely have reason to interact with the tax authorities, and for most people, that’s the way they like it. In the vast majority of cases, Canadians file their tax returns each spring,...
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 comp...
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 each and every rule there is an equal number of excep...
No one likes paying taxes, but for taxpayers who live on a fixed income having to pay a a large tax bill can mean real financial hardship – and the majority of Canadians who live on fixed incomes ar...
For the past two years, Canadians have had to continually adjust their household budgets to accommodate price increases for nearly all goods and services. The impact of rising prices is felt most by t...
Most Canadians don’t turn their attention to their taxes until sometime around the end of March or the beginning of April, in time to complete the return for 2023 ahead of the April 30, 2024 filing ...
While owning one’s own home brings with it many intangible benefits, home ownership also provides some very significant financial advantages. Specifically, it provides the opportunity to accumulate ...
While our tax laws require Canadian residents to complete and file a T1 tax return form each spring, that return form is never exactly the same from year to year. Some of the changes found in each yea...
Two quarterly newsletters have been added – one dealing with personal issues, and one dealing with corporate issues....
Each year, the Canada Revenue Agency publishes a statistical summary of the tax filing patterns of Canadians during the previous filing season. The final statistics for 2023 show that the vast majorit...
Income tax is a big-ticket item for most retired Canadians. Especially for those who are no longer paying a mortgage, the annual tax bill may be the single biggest expenditure they are required to mak...
If there is one invariable “rule” of financial and retirement planning of which most Canadians are aware, it is the unquestioned wisdom of making regular contributions to one’s registered retire...
Sometime during the month of February, millions of Canadians will receive some unexpected mail from the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA). That mail, entitled simply “Instalment Reminder”, will set out ...
The Employment Insurance (EI) premium rate for 2024 is set at 1.66%....
Changes made to the Québec Pension Plan (QPP) beginning in the 2024 calendar year will create a two-tier contribution structure....
Changes made to the Canada Pension Plan (CPP) beginning in the 2024 calendar year will create a two-tier contribution structure....
Dollar amounts on which individual non-refundable federal tax credits for 2024 are based, and the actual tax credit claimable, will be as follows:...
The indexing factor for federal tax credits and brackets for 2024 is 4.7%. The following federal tax rates and brackets will be in effect for individuals for the 2024 tax year....
Each new tax year brings with it a schedule of tax payment and filing deadlines, as well as some changes with respect to tax saving and planning opportunities. Some of the more significant dates and c...
While most taxpayers pay their annual income tax bill in full and by the tax payment deadline of April 30, there are many circumstances that could result in an individual’s being unable to meet thei...
While almost everyone looks forward to retirement and an end to the day-to-day demands of working life, there’s also no question but that the decision to give up a regular paycheque is a stressful o...
During the month of December, it’s customary for employers to provide something “extra” for their employees, whether it’s a compensation bonus, a gift, or an employer-sponsored social event ...
Everyone in Canada who earns a salary or wages is familiar with the deduction taken from each paycheque for contributions to the Canada Pension Plan (CPP). The CPP is one of the two major government-s...
Two quarterly newsletters have been added – one dealing with personal issues, and one dealing with corporate issues....
When the pandemic struck in March of 2020 and public health lockdowns were imposed, virtually all Canadian employees were required to work from home, most for the first time....
The day-to-day financial impact of increases in interest rates over the past 18 months, together with higher costs for nearly all goods and services, means that for most Canadians maximizing take-home...
Canadians have a well-deserved reputation for supporting charitable causes, through donations of both money and goods. Our tax system supports that generosity by providing a tax credit for qualifying ...
The 10-fold increase in interest rates since March of 2022 has affected Canadians in almost every area of their financial lives, as individuals and families struggle to cope with the every-increasing ...
While our health care system is currently struggling with a number of significant problems, Canadians are nonetheless fortunate to have a publicly funded health care system, in which most major medica...
One or two generations ago, retirement was an event. Typically, an individual would leave the work force completely at age 65 and begin collecting Canada Pension Plan (CPP) and Old Age Security (OAS) ...
Most Canadians know that the deadline for making contributions to one’s registered retirement savings plan (RRSP) comes 60 days after the end of the calendar year, around the end of February. There ...
During the pandemic, temporary financial assistance was provided to Canadian small businesses through a number of grant and loan programs initiated by the federal government. One of the largest of tho...
By anyone’s measure, obtaining a post-secondary education is an expensive undertaking. Tuition and other school-related costs are just the start of the bills which must be paid. Whether the student ...
The Old Age Security (OAS) program is the only aspect of Canada’s retirement income system which does not require a direct contribution from recipients of program benefits. Rather, the OAS program i...
When the pandemic began in the spring of 2020, it wasn’t long before it became apparent that the increasing threat was to both public health and to the economy. In response to the economic threat, t...
The Canadian tax system is a “self-assessing system” which relies heavily on the voluntary co-operation of taxpayers. Canadians are expected (in fact, in most cases, required) to complete and file...
Two quarterly newsletters have been added—one dealing with personal issues, and one dealing with corporate issues....
While the way in which post-secondary learning is delivered may have changed and changed again over the past three and a half years, as the pandemic waxed and waned and finally ended, the financial re...
The scarcity of affordable housing in just about every Canadian community can’t be news to anyone anymore. Whether it’s in relation to rental housing or the purchase of a first home, the opportuni...
By mid to late summer, almost every Canadian has filed his or her income tax return for the previous year and has received the Notice of Assessment issued by the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) with respe...
Between 2009 and early 2022, Canadians lived (and borrowed) in an ultra-low interest rate environment. Between January 2009 and March 2022, the bank rate (from which commercial interest rates are dete...
The age at which Canadians retire and begin deriving income from government and private pensions and private retirement savings has become something of a moving target. At one time, reaching one’s 6...
By the time summer arrives, nearly all Canadians have filed their income tax returns for the previous year, have received a Notice of Assessment from the tax authorities with respect to that return an...
At a time when Canadian households are coping simultaneously with ongoing inflation, especially food inflation, as well as interest rates which are at their highest point in decades, every dollar of i...
With the worst days of the pandemic behind us, more and more Canadian families have returned to their usual schedule, with kids back in attendance at school and parents back at work at the office, on ...
Two quarterly newsletters have been added—one dealing with personal issues, and one dealing with corporate issues....
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 ...
Many, if not most, taxpayers think of tax planning as a year-end exercise to be carried out in the last few weeks of the year, with a view to taking the steps needed to minimize the tax bill for the c...
Canada’s retirement income system is made up of two public retirement income programs – the Old Age Security program and the Canada Pension Plan – as well as the opportunity to accumulate privat...
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 d...
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. Each return contained its own parti...
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. Eight interest rate hikes in the past 14 mont...
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. When things go entire...
There are a number of income sources available to Canadians in retirement. Those who participated in the work force during their adult life will have contributed to the Canada Pension Plan and will be...
Fortunately for the Canadian taxpayer, most individual income tax returns filed result in the payment of a tax refund to the tax filer. Notwithstanding, a significant number of taxpayers find, on comp...
Most Canadians live their lives with only very infrequent contact with the tax authorities and are generally happy to keep it that way. Sometime between mid-February and the end of April (or June 15 f...
It is an axiom of tax planning that the best year-end tax planning begins on January 1. And while it’s true that opportunities to make a significant dent in one’s tax payable for the year diminish...
Two quarterly newsletters have been added—one dealing with personal issues, and one dealing with corporate issues....
Most Canadians deal with our tax system only once a year, when it’s time to complete and file the annual tax return. That return form – the T1 Individual Income Tax Return – is eight single-spac...
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 ...
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. That said, howeve...
As the pandemic dragged on into 2022, many employees continued to work from home for pandemic-related reasons. And probably at least as many employees reached an agreement with their employer that the...
Just about a year ago, in the 2022-23 budget, the federal government announced a number of measures to help Canadians who are trying to put together a down payment for the purchase a first home. The m...
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 f...
Sometime during the month of February, millions of Canadians will receive mail from the Canada Revenue Agency. That mail, a “Tax Instalment Reminder”, will set out the amount of instalment payment...
2022 was a year of almost unrelenting bad financial news for Canadians, but perhaps no group was more affected by those changes than retirees who rely on income from unindexed pensions and from return...
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....
The Canada Pension Plan contribution rate for 2023 is set at 5.95% of pensionable earnings for the year....
Dollar amounts on which individual non-refundable federal tax credits for 2023 are based, and the actual tax credit claimable, will be as follows:...
The indexing factor for federal tax credits and brackets for 2023 is 6.3%. The following federal tax rates and brackets will be in effect for individuals for the 2023 tax year....
Each new tax year brings with it a listing of tax payment and filing deadlines, as well as some changes with respect to tax saving and planning strategies. Some of the more significant dates and chang...
Two quarterly newsletters have been added—one dealing with personal issues, and one dealing with corporate issues....
Canada’s retirement income system is often referred to as a three-part system. Individuals earning income from employment or self-employment can contribute to a registered retirement savings plan (R...
As the pandemic continues to wane, traditional employer-sponsored holiday social events have once again become a reality – although, as in all aspects of pandemic life, such events will likely be a ...
The worst of the COVID-19 pandemic which began almost three years ago is now (hopefully) behind us. That doesn’t mean, however, that Canadians aren’t still dealing with the unwelcome consequences ...
For individual Canadian taxpayers, the tax year ends at the same time as the calendar year. And what that means for individual Canadians is that any steps taken to reduce their tax payable for 2022 mu...
For most Canadians, tax planning for a year that hasn’t even started yet may seem too remote to even be considered. However, most Canadians will start paying their taxes for 2023 with the first payc...
Over the past three years, the structure of work-from-home arrangements for employees has been a constantly changing landscape. In 2020, almost all employees who could work from home were required to ...
The majority of Canadians who are not members of an employer-sponsored defined benefit registered pension plan save for retirement through a registered retirement savings plan (RRSP). For those Canadi...
While the current state of the Canadian health care system is not without its problems, Canadians are nonetheless fortunate to have a publicly-funded health care system, in which most major medical ex...
Two quarterly newsletters have been added—one dealing with personal issues, and one dealing with corporate issues....
Two quarterly newsletters have been added—one dealing with personal issues, and one dealing with corporate issues....
The fact that Canada is in the middle of a housing crisis isn’t really news to anyone. Whether it’s having difficulty finding an affordable apartment or putting together enough money for a down pa...
The Canadian tax system is a “self-assessing system” which relies heavily on the voluntary co-operation of taxpayers. Canadians are expected (in fact, in most cases, required) to complete and file...
Most Canadians know that the deadline for making contributions to one’s registered retirement savings plan (RRSP) comes 60 days after the end of the calendar year, around the end of February. There ...
Since early 2022, the finances of Canadian households have been hit with what Statistics Canada has called a “trifecta of market challenges”, which increasingly stretched and squeezed the efforts ...
One of the most valuable tax and investment strategies available to Canadians is home ownership. While the real estate market can (and does) go and up down, home ownership has proven to be, over the l...
Transitioning into retirement is a complex process, one which involves decisions around finances (present and future) as well as one’s way of life. While it was once typical for an individual to wor...
This year, for the first time since 2019, most (if not all) post-secondary students will be preparing to go to (or return to) university or college for in-person learning. While that’s an exciting p...
In this year’s budget, the federal government announced a number of measures to help Canadians who are trying to put together a down payment for the purchase of a first home. The most significant of...
By the beginning of August almost every Canadian has filed his or her income tax return for the previous year and has received the Notice of Assessment issued by the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) with r...
Canadian businesses should be aware that, while many programs which provided payroll or expense supports for businesses during the pandemic ended on May 7, 2022, there is still a program in place to h...
Since 2009, Canadians have been living (and borrowing) in an ultra-low-interest-rate environment. Between January 2009 and January 2022, the bank rate (from which commercial interest rates are determi...
By the time August 2022 arrives, virtually all individual Canadians have filed their income tax return for the 2021 tax year, have received a Notice of Assessment from the tax authorities with respect...
As pandemic restrictions ease, the option of sending kids to summer camp is once again a realistic one and, for both kids and parents, the possibility of doing so must be particularly welcome this yea...
At a time when Canadian households are coping simultaneously with rising interest rates and an inflation rate which recently hit its highest point in nearly four decades, every dollar of income counts...
When a public health emergency was declared in March of 2020, the focus for the federal government was getting pandemic benefits into the hands of eligible recipients as quickly as possible, to help m...
If Canadians have the feeling that they are being squeezed from all sides when it comes to household finances, it’s because they are. In 2022 Canadian consumers have been hit by a double whammy of t...
Many, if not most, taxpayers think of tax planning as a year-end exercise to be carried out in the last few weeks of the year, with a view to taking the steps needed to minimize the tax bill for the c...
While recent increases in interest rates have put something of a damper on home sales, the Canadian real estate market was booming in the first quarter of 2022. According to Canadian Real Estate Assoc...
Of the 27 million individual income tax returns already filed with the Canada Revenue Agency for the 2021 tax year, no two were identical. Each return contained its own particular combination of types...
Over the past several years, would-be buyers in the Canadian residential real estate market have been faced with two realities. First, the cost of homes continued to increase significantly in virtuall...
Since the beginning of the pandemic in March 2020, the federal government has provided a wide range of pandemic benefit programs for individuals. In the main, those programs have acted to replace inco...
Canada’s retirement income system has three major components – private savings through registered retirement savings plans or registered pension plans, and two public retirement income plans – t...
The difficulties faced by younger Canadians in buying a first home almost anywhere in Canada, owing to both the spiraling cost of real estate and, more recently, increases in interest rates, is a majo...
For the majority of Canadians, the due date for filing of an individual tax return for the 2021 tax year was Monday May 2, 2022. (Self-employed Canadians and their spouses have until Wednesday June 15...
Two quarterly newsletters have been added—one dealing with personal issues, and one dealing with corporate issues....
It is a sad fact that, every year, thousands of Canadians become the victims of scams in which fraud artists claim to be representatives of the federal government. Equally sadly, in most cases the mon...
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 comp...
Our tax system is complex and, understandably, its myriad rules and exceptions are a mystery to most Canadian taxpayers – and most are happy to leave it that way. There is however, one rule in the C...
Most Canadians don’t turn their attention to their taxes until sometime around the end of March or the beginning of April, in time to complete the return for 2021 ahead of the May 2, 2022 filing dea...
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 last year show that the vast ...
The Canadian tax system provides individual taxpayers with a tax credit for out-of-pocket medical and para-medical expenses incurred during the year. Given that such expenses must be incurred at some ...
While the requirement that Canadians file an income tax return each year never changes, the actual content of that return is never the same year to year. While many of the changes — like inflation-r...
The list of financial assistance programs that have been provided by the federal government to support individual Canadians through two years of the pandemic is lengthy, detailed, and sometimes confus...
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 p...
Income tax is a big-ticket item for most retired Canadians. Especially for those who are no longer paying a mortgage, the annual tax bill may be the single biggest expenditure they are required to mak...
If there is one invariable “rule” of financial and retirement planning of which most Canadians are aware, it is the unquestioned wisdom of making regular contributions to one’s registered retire...
As the pandemic continued past 2020 and through 2021, it is likely that employees who were able to work from home spent at least part of the 2021 tax year doing just that. And, as was the case in 2020...
The Employment Insurance premium rate for 2022 is unchanged at 1.58%....
The Quebec Pension Plan contribution rate for 2022 is set at 6.15% of pensionable earnings for the year....
The Canada Pension Plan contribution rate for 2022 is set at 5.7% of pensionable earnings for the year....
Dollar amounts on which individual non-refundable federal tax credits for 2022 are based, and the actual tax credit claimable, will be as follows:...
The indexing factor for federal tax credits and brackets for 2022 is 2.4%. The following federal tax rates and brackets will be in effect for individuals for the 2022 tax year....
Two quarterly newsletters have been added—one dealing with personal issues, and one dealing with corporate issues....
Welcome and thank you for visiting our website. In addition to providing you with a profile of our firm and the services we provide, this website has been designed to become a helpful resource tool to you, our valued clients and visitors. Our dedication to superior client service has brought us to the Internet as we endeavor to continue to provide the highest quality professional service and guidance.
As you browse through our website, you will see that we have not only highlighted background information on our firm and the services we provide, but have also included useful resources such as informative articles (in our Newsletters section) and interactive financial calculators (in our Financial Tools section). In addition, we have taken the time to gather many links to external websites that we felt would be of interest to our clients and visitors (in our Links section).
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