As an employer, you have to make payroll deductions and remittances to pay yourself and/or your employees. Below is the latest update you should know to make your payroll deduction and remittances easier and painless.

Remit your payroll deductions quarterly instead of monthly.

Starting in 2016, if you are an new small employers, you can choose to remit your payroll deductions quarterly instead of monthly.

If your monthly withholding amount is less than $1,000 and you have a perfect compliance history, you will be eligible for quarterly payroll deductions and remitting.

You have to send your deduction before the 15th of the month immediately following the end of each quarter. The due dates for quarterly deductions are April 15, July 15, October 15 and January 15.

Online services for payroll deductions and remittances

You can now:

• authorize the CRA to withdraw an amount from your bank account on date(s) that you choose; and
• enrol for direct deposit, or update the banking information.

To access CRA online services, go to: http://www.cra-arc.gc.ca/mybusinessaccount/. You can also authorize a registered representative to act on your behalf.

Penalties and interest if you make your payroll deductions late

The penalty is:

• 3% if the amount is one to three days late;
• 5% if it is four or five days late;
• 7% if it is six or seven days late; and
• 10% if it is more than seven days late, or if no amount is remitted.

In addition, if you are assessed this penalty more than once in a calendar year, the CRA may apply a 20% penalty on the second or later failures if they were made knowingly or under circumstances of gross negligence.

If you do not pay an amount, the CRA may apply interest from the day your payment was due. The interest rate we use is determined every three months, based on prescribed interest rates. Interest is compounded daily.

In 2016 tax season, the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) has launched an Auto-fill tax return program. The Auto-fill tax return can automatically fill in portions of your tax return, help to make tax-filing easier.

To use the auto-fill tax return program, you need to authorize us as your tax representative by signing the form Form T1013, Authorizing or Cancelling a Representative.

More details about tax presentative, please check the link. https://www.incometaxottawa.ca/tax-representative/

Information Auto-fill tax return deliver

• T3, Statement of Trust Income Allocations and Designations
• T4, Statement of Remuneration Paid
• T4A, Statement of Pension, Retirement, Annuity, and Other Income
• T4A(OAS), Statement of Old Age Security
• T4A(P), Statement of Canada Pension Plan Benefits
• T4E, Statement of Employment Insurance and Other Benefits
• T4RIF, Statement of Income from a Registered Retirement Income Fund
• T4RSP, Statement of Registered Retirement Savings Plan Income
• T5, Statement of Investment Income
• T5007, Statement of Benefits
• T5008, Statement of Securities Transactions
• RC62, Universal Child Care Benefit Statement
• RRSP: Registered retirement savings plan contribution receipt
• Registered Retirement Savings Plan contribution limit
• Home Buyers’ Plan repayment amount
• Lifelong Learning Plan repayment amount
• non-capital losses
• capital gains and losses
• capital gains deductions
• federal tuition, education, and textbook carryover amounts
• provincial tuition, education, and textbook carryover amounts

Information Auto-fill tax return doesn’t deliver

• RL1 and other Quebec tax slips
• T2202A for tuition fee payment
• Child care expenses
• Rent or property tax you paid
• And more…

Using the Auto-fill tax return program makes filing faster and easier. However, it is still your responsibility to make sure you file all tax slips and report all tax information correctly.

Starting in February 2016, you will receive a new Notice of Assessment (NOA) after filing your income tax return. According to the CRA, the new Notice of assessment will be clearer, simpler and easier to read comparing to the old one.

On the new Notice of Assessment, you will see the most important information on the first page which includes:

• Tax year information
• Action you need to take
• Summary of your account

As always, the CRA continue to encourage you go online and use CRA My Account to manage your tax matters.Through My Account, you can access more detailed information about your taxes and benefits.

I hope you will like the new Notice of Assessment.

Tax Seminar details:

• Date and Time: Feb 18 (Thursday), 2016, 6-8pm
• Location: Routhier Community Centre, 172 Guigues Ave, Ottawa, ON K1N 5H9 (Close to ByWard Market)
• Fee: $20.5 paid to the Routhier Community Centre
• Phone: 613-244-4470
• Email: Louise.Mayer@ottawa.ca
• Instructor: Jack Liu

Please call or email to make a reservation.There is a limit of 20 attendees as maxmium. If there is less than 5 people registered, the tax seminar will be canceled.

In this tax seminar, you can learn how to prepare income tax returns for your rental business or self-employed small business. We will show you how to set up your start up business taxes, and how to claim your rental or business expenses.

Section 1: Prepare a tax return with rental income

1. calculate your rental income

• Determinate share of ownership of your rental property.
• You cannot claim rental loss by renting below fair market value.
• Accounting methods used in calculating rental income

Click the following link for more details. https://www.incometaxottawa.ca/rental-income-in-your-tax-return/

2. Claim rental expenses

Most common expenses you can claim

• Advertising
• Insurance
• Interest
• Office expenses
• Legal, accounting, and other professional fees
• Management and administration fees
• Maintenance and repairs
• Salaries, wages, and benefits
• Property taxes
• Utilities
• Travel and Motor vehicle expenses as rental expenses
• Other rental expenses

Click the following link for more details. https://www.incometaxottawa.ca/rental-expenses-current-expenses/

3. Capital Cost Allowance (CCA) for your Rental Property

Click the following link for more details. https://www.incometaxottawa.ca/capital-cost-allowance-cca/

4. Make sure your home qualify for the principal residence exemption

Click the following link for more details. https://www.incometaxottawa.ca/principal-residence-exemption/

Section 2: Prepare a tax return with self-employment income.

1. Two types of business.

• Self-employed
• Corporation

Click the following link for more details. https://www.incometaxottawa.ca/startup-business-taxes/

2. Claim your business expenses.

• Subcontract
• Advertising
• Meals and entertainment
• Bad debts
• Insurance
• Interest
• Business tax, fees, licences, dues, memberships, and subscriptions
• Office expenses
• Supplies
• Legal, accounting, and other professional fees
• Management and administration fees
• Rent
• Maintenance and repairs
• Salaries, wages, and benefits
• Property taxes
• Travel expenses
• Telephone and utilities
• Delivery, freight, and express
• Computer and other equipment leasing costs
• Convention expenses

Click the following link for more details. https://www.incometaxottawa.ca/self-employed-business-expenses/
https://www.incometaxottawa.ca/self-employed-business-expenses-part-2/

3. Claim your vehicle expenses

Claim your vehicle expenses, which include:

• licence and registration fees;
• fuel and oil costs;
• insurance;
• interest on money borrowed to buy a vehicle.
• maintenance and repairs; and
• leasing costs to lease a vehicle you use to earn income.
• Claim capital cost allowance (CCA) on your vehicle

Click the following link for more details. https://www.incometaxottawa.ca/claim-vehicle-expenses/”

See you in the tax seminar!

Tax workshop details:

• Date and Time: Feb 25 (Thursday), 2016, 6-8pm
• Location: Routhier Community Centre, 172 Guigues Ave, Ottawa, ON K1N 5H9 (Close to ByWard Market)
• Fee: $20.5 paid to the Routhier Community Centre
• Phone: 613-244-4470
• Email: Louise.Mayer@ottawa.ca
• Instructor: Jack Liu

Please call or email to make a reservation.There is a limit of 20 attendees as maxmium. If there is less than 5 people registered, the tax workshop will be canceled.

In this tax workshop, you can learn how to prepare your tax documents, choose tax software, fill your tax forms, and avoid common tax mistakes. Also, we will show you how to how tax credits and tax deductions save your taxes.

You will learn:

1. Prepare you tax documents.

You can use our income tax checklist to make sure you have gathered all your tax slips and documents.

2. Choose a tax software.

You can choose different tax software to prepare your tax return. On this tax workshop, we use Studiotax to show you how to do it step by step. It is free for personal use. You can download it at http://www.studiotax.com/en/

3. Prepare a basic tax return for a single person.

On this tax workshop, we will show you how to prepare a tax return for John Smith as example.

John Smith is single and lives in Ottawa. In 2015, he has

• one T4 tax slip
• paid property tax $4,000.
• made $5000 Registered Retirement Saving Plan (RRSP) contribution.

4. Work on your tax returns in 3 different ways.

1. Use wizard to add tuition fee form T2202A.
2. Use menu to add a T5 tax slip.
3. Add union fee $100 directly on tax form.

5. How tax credits and tax deductions reduce your taxes.

Tax deduction reduces your taxable income, thus lower your tax bill or increase your tax refund.

Tax credit directly reduces tax liability and hence produces the same tax saving amount for all taxpayers, despite their income and marginal tax rates.

6. Prepare a family tax return.

On this tax workshop, we will show you how to prepare a tax return for a family as example.

Mary Black has

• One T4.
• U-pass for public transit, which cost her $500.
• Universal child care benefit (UCCB) $1200 for her son John.
• $200 charity donations.

Her husband has one T4.

7. Optimize the family tax return.

On this tax workshop, we will show you how to optimize a family tax return by transferring tax credits between spouses and combining tax credits.

As promised by Justin Trudeau’s Liberal government, the income tax cuts for middle class takes effect on Jan 1, 2016. For taxable earnings between $45,282 and $90,563, the income tax rate will drop from 22% to 20.5%.

If you are making $90,563 in 2016, the income tax cut will save you $679.22/year. With this saving, you can buy a cup of coffee every day, large size. If your income is lower than $45,282, sorry, this income tax cut is not for you.

To calculate the exact income tax cut saving amount, you can use the formula below.

(Your taxable income – $45,282) x1.5%.

If the result is more than $$679.22, you get the maximum amount $679.22. If the result is negative, you don’t get any tax saving from the income tax cut for middle class.

At the same time, for people make beyond $200,000, the tax rate will rise from 29 per cent to 33 per cent. An estimated 319,000 Canadians will fall into this upper tax bracket.

In addition to income tax cut, the federal limit for contributions to tax-free savings accounts is also dropping to $5,500 from $10,000 per year.

You won’t see these changes on this coming tax filing season since we are filing tax returns for 2015 tax year. Next year, while you are filing your 2016 tax return, you will notice these changes take effects.

For the 2016 tax-filing season, the Canada Revenue Agency announces changes to existing services, credits and amount. Below are the details.

Updated notice of assessment

The Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) has improved the notice of assessment! The new, simpler format provides the most important information about your assessment on the first page.

Auto-fill my return

The CRA’s “Auto-fill my return” service is now available through some certified tax software. This service allows you to automatically fill in certain parts of your income tax and benefit return. To use the Auto-fill my return service, you must be fully registered for My Account.

Online mail

Online mail is the fast, easy and secure way to manage your tax correspondence. Get statements such as your notice of assessment online in My Account, instead of in the mail.

To register, you need to provide CRA with an email address on your income return or register directly online at www.cra.gc.ca/myaccount. New correspondence, such as benefits statements (summer 2016), will be added this year!

Universal child care benefit (UCCB)

For the 2015 tax year, under the UCCB, families will receive $160 per month for each child under 6 and $60 per month for each child aged 6 through 17.

Disability Tax Credit

This year, Canadians claiming the Disability Tax Credit (DTC) will be able to file their T1 return online regardless of whether or not their Form T2201, Disability Tax Credit Certificate has been submitted to the CRA for that tax year.

Children’s fitness amount

As of January 1, 2015, this is now a refundable tax credit available to families with children enrolled in a prescribed program of physical activity. For tax years prior to 2015, this credit was non-refundable.

Child Care Expense Deduction limits

As of the 2015 tax year, the Child Care Expense Deduction dollar limits have increased by $1,000.

The maximum amounts that can be claimed have increased to $8,000 for children under age seven, to $5,000 for children aged seven through 16, and to $11,000 for children who are eligible for the Disability Tax Credit.

MyCRA mobile app

Get your tax information anytime, anywhere, on your mobile device! In October 2015, new features were added to the MyCRA mobile app such as personalized benefit payment information, enhanced tax return status, and Canada child tax benefit application status.

Starting February 2016, you will also be able to update your address, manage your online mail with the CRA, and sign up for direct deposit.

All tax returns we did in these courses are individual income tax returns. The official name is “T1 General Income Tax and Benefit Return”. Every adult Canadian resident should file individual income tax return every year.

Individual income tax return has four main pages.

• T1 Page 1 includes your personal information.
• T1 Page 2 contains your incomes such as employment income, self-employment income, and rental income.



• T1 Page 3 has all your tax deductions such as RRSP deduction, child care expenses deduction and employment expenses deduction. For more information about tax deduction, read Tax courses 4: Understand tax deduction.



• T1 Page 4 shows the result – How much you owe or get refund. You can also enrol for direct deposit by input your bank account. If you have to mail your tax return, you have to sign on this page too.



Every time you need to check or change something, you can do that by going directly to the according page. For example, if you want to claim your universal child care benefit, you can go directly to page 2 and double click line 117, and input the number into the pop-up form RC62.

Important schedules on your individual income tax return

Schedule 1 must be included on your individual income tax return.

On schedule 1, you claim your Federal non-refundable tax credits such as public transmit amount, tuition amount and basic personal amount. Read more on Tax course 5: Understand tax credit.



Schedule 5 where you claim amount for spouse or common-law partner and dependants.

If you are single parent, don’t forget claim your child as eligible dependant in schedule 5. If you are married or live common-law and your partner is low income, you may be able to claim spouse or common-law partner amount.

Schedule 6 to claim working income tax benefit

Ontario tax form ON-Ben to claim your rent or property tax payment.

Check the box.



Input your rental payment amount.



The more you practice, the more you will understand your individual income tax return.Click to read all articles about Tax Courses.

In this case study, you will learn how to prepare tax return for couple. Clients’ information is as below.

Mary Black, living in Ottawa with his husband David Black, studies in college and works part-time. She has tax slips as below.

• One employment income tax slip T4.



• Tuition and education amount tax slip T2202A.



• She has unused Federal tuition amount $2000 and Ontario tuition amount $1500, which can be carried forward to this year tax return.
• She also has a U-pass for public transit. It costs her $500 in 2014.

Her husband, David Black, works full time and has one T4 tax slip as below.

Let’s create a new file and prepare this tax return for couple from the beginning.

1. Input personal information in a tax return for couple.

Run Studio Tax, create a new file, and follow the wizard to input personal information for the tax return for couple.

On Marriage Stutus, choose “Married” and check “create a spousal linked tax return”.

If your marital status changes you must notify the CRA within a month. The CRA will recalculate your benefits such as Child benefits, GST/HST credits and Ontario Trillium Benefit based on your marital status change. Your benefits will be adjusted the month following the month in which your marital status changed.

You can do this by using “Change my marital status” on My Account or by calling 1-800-387-1193.

Click the link to read more about CRA online services.

2. Select tax slips.

3. Check “tuition” box since she has unused tuition amount carried forward.

4. Input Mary’s T4 slip and T2202A slip.

5. Input unused tuition and education amount.

6. Input David’s T4 slip

7. Check the result in the tax return for couple.

Mary’s tax refund is $554.65.

David’s refund is $1515.99.

8. Claim public transmit credit on the spouse return to maximizing tax saving on this tax return for couple.

You may notice I didn’t claim Mary’s $500 public transmit amount on her tax return. This is because it won’t get more tax refund for Mary by claiming this amount on her tax return.

On Schedule 1, you can see Mary’s non-refundable tax amount, including basic personal amount 11,380 and Canada employment amount 1,127, is more than her income. Since she doesn’t need to pay tax, claiming more non-refundable tax credits won’t help her get more tax refund.

However, claiming the $500 public transmit amount on her husband tax return can increase his tax refund to $1590.99, saving tax $75 (15% of $500).

9. Transfer Mary’s tuition fee to her husband to get more tax refund.

Not only transmit amount, Mary can also transfer her tuition fee amount to her husband.

On Schedule 11, you can see the maximum transfer is 5,000, so you can check the “transfer to your spouse or common-law partner” and put 5,000 on the federal amount transferred.

On Schedule ON(S11), transfer the Ontario tuition maximum amount 6,680.

10. Check the result.

David’s tax refund is $2,678.63, increased $1,087.64 after transferred the tuition fee amount from Mary to David.

In all, while preparing tax return for couple, keep in mind there may be tax credits can be transferred to each other, and it will help to get more tax refund.

Click to read all articles about Tax Courses.

In this case study, we will learn how to prepare tax return for single parent.

Continue using the same client John Smith as tax course 5, we add additional information on him as below.

• He is single parent living with his son Mike Smith, who is born Jan 01, 2010.
• John paid $3000 child care expenses.
• He paid $800 for his son to play soccer.

Let’s learn how to prepare tax return for single parent.

1. Input his son information.

• Click “Dependants” on the main menu.
• Click ”Add” to add dependant.
• Input dependant’s name and click OK.
• Input dependant’s day of birth, relationship, his net income or check the box “income is NIL”, and then click OK.

2. Claim child care expenses.

• Click “child care expenses…” button.
• Click “add” at the pop up window.
• Input child care expense amount and name of child care provider, then click OK.

Click to learn more about child care expenses.

3. Input fitness amount $800.

4. Check the result.

Go back to T1 page 4, you should see the refund is $4209, before it is $2612.

Go to Schedule 1. You see the child amount 2255 was claimed properly. However, the amount for eligible dependant was not claimed automatically.

There is a mistake!

5. Fix this mistake.

• Double click line 305 on schedule or click “Forms” to add schedule 5.
• Click “pick name”, a window should pop up.
• Select “Mike Smith” then click OK.

6. Get back to see the result.

After we fix the mistake, the refund is $6309, increased more than $2,000.

This small tax mistake can you ost more than $2,000. Lesson learnt from this mistake:

Never rely on any software blindly.

Now you know how to prepare tax return for single parent, in the next course, let’s learn how to prepare tax return for couple.

Click to read all articles about Tax Courses.