The CRA opens for filing information returns on Monday, 7th January, 2019. These include T3, T4, T5 and NR-4 returns. Affected individuals include those with Trusts, Estates, Employees, pay interest or dividends, or who are a non-resident Landlord.
I have been contacting affected clients by email and by phone to get their information in. Please feel free to call me if you have not received any message yet.
These returns are due in the next month.
Here are some statistics for 2018, showing how hard I work for my clients. (Most people will not be interested, but I thought it was interesting.)
In 2018, I:
A question raised was if the purchase of Cannabis from a retail or provincially regulated Cannabis retailer can be claimed on a personal tax return as a medical expense.
The short answer is no.
The claim for cannabis is made under Paragraph 118.2(2)(u) of the Income Tax Act. To qualify, the patient must be authorized under the Federal Acts and the purchase must be made from either Health Canada or other certain specified production licenses. The provincially regulated Cannabis retailers who opened on Oct 17, 2018 do not hold the licenses under that Paragraph so no purchases made from those locations will qualify.
It is entirely possible that the Act may be changed. But presently, this is what the law says.
If you find that the retail source is cheaper than the medical source, you may wish to consider if it is to your benefit to purchase from the retail source. If that is your choice, you must evaluate the lost benefits from any insurance claims which you will be entitled to as well as the impact on your tax return from no longer being able to make a medical claim for the same item. This evaluation is based on your personal circumstance and is beyond the scope of this article. You are welcome to engage my services to assist you with this, by using the Contact Me tab on your screen.
Now that email bankruptcy has reset the inbox, what to do?
I am moving emails into a CSM (that means Client Service Manager) where threads will be kept there for business related conversations.
If a client message comes in the regular email, the goal is to move it into the CSM, then file the email in the email inbox immediately.
How long will this last? Don’t know. I still have emails from the late ’90s on a disk somewhere. I don’t like to throw emails away.
Some of my former subscribers will have noticed that there is no subscription service at this time. New readers may be asking for a way to subscribe.
At present, the email subscription is disabled pending an overhaul of the email subscription service. There is a duplication of the various email lists and I am consolidating the multiple lists to make things easier for everyone.
When the email lists have been consolidated, the old email lists will be shut down and the new will be activated. At that time, I will allow new subscribers.1
