April 30th – personal deadline or taxes owing should be paid on or before;

June 15th – self-employed deadline

Late filing penalties apply, a minimum of 5% of the balance owing on your return, plus a further penalty of 1% of the unpaid tax multiplied by # of full months return is not filed.

A couple points on T-slips:

T4s (Employment, EI Benefits, OAS, CPP, RSP, RIF, LIF) should all be in hand by now

T5s (Investment income like interest, dividends, mutual fund distributions) should also have been received

Several other T-slips may be applicable, be sure to check with your professional or tax software

Most capital gains/losses are not reported on a t-slip and would require you to have a report that illustrates disposition costs and proceeds that resulted in a gain or loss. Many financial institutions provide this information.

Receipts – ensure you have the following, if applicable:

RRSP contribution slips, medical expenses, transit pass receipts, charitable contributions, child care expenses, carrying charges (like safety deposit box), interest paid on student loans, work-space-in-home expenses, and many more

There are many comprehensive checklists available and many tax advisors and their firms provide them. I found this one online: http://simpletax.ca/files/2016_Checklist.pdf

Other considerations:

Some investments such as income trusts, mutual funds and limited partnerships tend to issue tax slips later than most other investments. Check with your financial advisor team to ensure you have all them before filing.

If you earned less than $50 of investment income during the year, the investment/issuer may not send a tax slip but you still must report all of your investment income.

If you receive a tax slip after filing your tax return, be sure to report the missed income as soon as you can.

After filing your income tax return, be sure to keep supporting documents in a safe place. Generally, keep these documents for at least 6 years after the end of the tax year.

CRA has a service available called My Account for individual taxpayers. This online service allows you to view previous returns, certain tax slips, RRSP room, TFSA room and more. Both your tax advisor and investment & wealth advisor teams could use this information in planning your financial future.

Surrounding oneself with a financial support team can help ease the workload and possible stress of the tax season. Unfortunately, income tax reporting has not gotten simpler but more complicated. Part of my teams’ service is to ease this stress and free up your time. We assist our clients with confirming all slips’ arrival, in some cases, collecting and delivering to their tax advisor, plus providing additional reports for capital gains (or losses) and T1135 reports.

For a detailed list of 2017 Tax Preparation reminders, please click here.

Thinking about Spring,

The Dool Team