Posted by & filed under Canadian Government, Personal Tax.

Description: The C.D. Howe Institute released a report last week questioning the very idea that most Canadians should have to file an annual income tax return with the federal government. The report, Automatic Tax Filing: A Challenging Idea for Canada, compared our Canadian tax system to those of other OECD nations, looking at the feasibility of Canada adopting automatic filing for the annual income tax return. The report indicated that the Canada Revenue Agency would only have enough information already to allow for a “no file” option for only about 32% of Canadians. The tax system would need to undergo significant simplification to bring those numbers higher.

Date:  January 27, 2022

Source:  financialpost.com

 Link: https://financialpost.com/personal-finance/taxes/why-do-we-even-have-to-file-a-tax-return-in-the-first-place

Discussion points:

1) How much time and money do you have to spend on your own tax preparation?

2) The story notes that the federal government did introduce the concept of auto filing of tax returns in a recent Speech from the Throne. What do you think will need to change to make this a reality?

3) Chapter 10 of Wiley’s Financial Accounting: Tools for Business Decision Making provides an overview of employers’ responsibilities to deduct income tax from employees and the related liability to the Government of Canada. How would this process feed into an auto-file for tax returns?

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *