DAVID WILKENFELD, CPA, CA, canadian tax CONSULTANT

Archive for the ‘Business Expenses’ Category

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Harassment, Conflict and Litigation – Part Three

In Business Expenses, Canadian Income Tax on September 21, 2011 at 9:50 am

In the final instalment of this series on what creates the most HCL with the CRA in our SAS (“harassment, conflict and litigation” with the “Canada Revenue Agency” in our “self-assessment system”), we cover the granddaddy of disputable expenses – automobile costs. Any tax auditor worth his salt will zero right in on auto expenses like my tee shots to water. Why? Because everybody loves to drive and everybody loves to deduct car expenses. The problem is that the rules in this area are so onerous and complex, few taxpayers under investigation ever come out of it with no HC or L. It’s the record-keeping burden that gets most people into the HCL zone. So heed the following, and minimize your grief.

First, let’s summarize the basic rules for deductibility. As with any expense, the costs deducted must be in connection with your business. So how do we identify the business portion of the cost of something we regularly and continuously use for both personal and business purposes?

Kilometres.

Anyone who uses a car for business should keep track of the total amount of kilometres driven during the year, and a detailed account of which of those kilometres were driven in the performance of their business or employment functions.

Keep receipts and a detailed account of all your auto expenses, such as gas, repairs and maintenance, insurance, licence, registration, car loan interest and leasing costs. If you own your car, you may be able to claim depreciation (CCA).

Now you’re almost there, but you should be aware of certain limits that apply. If you lease your vehicle, deductible payments are restricted to $800 per month (or less, based on a formula, if the value of the car exceeds $30,000).

If you’ve borrowed to purchased your car, loan interest is limited to a maximum of $300 per month. For CCA purposes, there is a maximum on the capital cost of $30,000.

Finally, if you receive a non-taxable per-kilometre allowance from your employer, then you are not entitled to claim any auto expenses personally.

These rules are fairly detailed and objective, so where does the HCL come in? Problems normally arise in two areas – record-keeping, and what constitutes business mileage.

Most people by nature do not keep records as meticulously as the CRA would love to see. If you are audited, and need to justify the amount of kilometres you drove in a year for business purposes, the best evidence you could have would be a logbook where you keep track of where you drove, the number of kilometers, and the business purpose. Compare that to the total kilometres driven for the year, and you have pretty well justified your calculation. In most cases, however, a logbook does not exist, and the taxpayer is left to plead, cajole, regale and negotiate with mostly unsympathetic auditors to have them accept his ad-hoc percentage of business use.

In Quebec, the law requires that you keep a logbook if you drive a company car. Employees must provide their employer with a logbook within ten days after the end of the year, or face a fine of $200.

The second issue of concern is that sometimes it is not clear whether a trip qualifies as business use. Some taxpayers are unaware that travel from home to the place of work does not constitute business travel. However, here’s a tip: if you start out at home, make a stop for business purposes, say at a client’s premises, then proceed from there to your office, then the entire trip would qualify.

What about the case where home is the regular head office and work is carried out at remote sites, such as in the case of a self-employed contractor? If you can establish that your home is your center of operations, then all travel to a work site should be considered for business.

In this series of posts, we touched on some of the most common areas where taxpayers find themselves in hot water with the CRA. Our SAS requires good record-keeping and knowledge of the law. Hopefully, these articles have helped you with the SAS and your HCL level should go down from here.

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Harassment, Conflict and Litigation – Part Two

In Business Expenses, Canadian Income Tax on September 13, 2011 at 9:06 am

This series of articles deals with a topic that often gets taxpayers into conflict with the taxman, what a client of mine described as “harassment, conflict and litigation”, which I have shortened to the easy-to-spell HCL. In our self-assessment system (SAS) of tax reporting, we are required to be aware of the rules, and honestly provide the CRA with correct information about our taxes. Most often, tax auditors like to zero in on those deductions that are most easily “miscalculated” by us SAS-ers. That’s because of the strict rules surrounding them, and their potential personal component. I am speaking, of course of meals and entertainment, and automobile expenses (MENTA). This article will discuss the rules surrounding meals and entertainment expenses.

Taking a client out for a meal is a long-standing and acceptable business practice. Traditionally, business-related meals have been deductible in our system. However, there is a 50% restriction on the deduction, in recognition of the fact that there is at least one person (you) enjoying a personal benefit from the arrangement. (In Quebec, there is a further restriction based on a percentage of gross sales.)

What constitutes a business meal to a taxpayer may not always pass muster with the CRA, and here’s where the HCL comes in. For example, there are some tax auditors who simply make the assumption that any meal consumed on the weekend is non-business related and automatically disallowed. Evidence that a meal is business related should include a copy of the restaurant bill, the name of the guest and the business reason for the meal. The burden is on the taxpayer to prove his case on a balance of probabilities.

There are similar rules for entertainment expenses. Sports and theatre tickets are good examples. If you purchase season tickets to a sporting event, for example, you must show the business purpose for the purchase by keeping track of who uses them and their business relationship to you.

Golf is pretty popular in the business world, and the CRA has always known this. That’s why there is a special rule for golf and other such club dues and fees. It’s a simple one: they are not deductible.

But what about business meals at a golf club? Back in 1997, the CRA came up with a policy that meals consumed at the club in conjunction with a game of golf were not deductible. So, as long as you weren’t playing golf, you could go there for a meal. If you played, you had to go somewhere else afterwards to enjoy a nice tax deduction with your meal. The CRA has since seen the silliness of this policy and now allows business meals at a golf club to be deductible (subject to the 50% restriction). Club dues and green fees, however are still off limits.

The meals and entertainment rules have been great fodder for HCL for many years. In one case, the CRA applied the 50% restriction to an investment advisor who routinely gave donuts to his clients to thank them for referring business. The Tax Court of Canada held that donuts did not constitute a “meal”, and allowed the deduction in full. Personally, I can’t imagine the staggering number of Timbits it would take to justify the cost of going to court over this issue, but at least the judge was able to show he was familiar with the basic food groups :-) .

In another case, a food critic, whose sole job it is to eat meals at restaurants was told by the CRA that the 50% restriction applied to her. This illustrates that there are no exceptions to the 50% rule (except, of course the exceptions, which include employee parties and charitable events – but I digress).

In our next article, more HCL with automobile expenses.

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Harassment, Conflict and Litigation – Part One

In Business Expenses, Canadian Income Tax on September 5, 2011 at 2:50 pm

I took a client to lunch the other day and he made an interesting observation. He thinks the income tax system in this country is based on harassment, conflict and litigation (what I will hereafter refer to with your permission as the HCL of Canadian tax). I felt obliged to point out to him that although HCL is a dominant feature, the actual basis of our tax mechanism is quite the opposite. In fact it relies at its core on the “self assessment system” of taxes by the taxpayer himself (Let’s call it the SAS). If a taxpayer practices accurate and honest SAS, then he will completely avoid the HCL. Well, that’s what our government (the CRA) tells us anyway, and I guess that would be true, at least in a perfect world (APW). Of course we don’t live in APW, and in our constant efforts to SAS, we might inadvertently cross the line, receive a friendly visit from the CRA and get into some stressful HCL.

The next three articles will deal with what I believe to be among the most common causes of HCL in our system: meals and entertainment, and automobile expenses (MENTA). When MENTA are related to the process of earning taxable income they may be deducted from income for tax purposes. Therefore, I should have been allowed to write-off the cost of that lunch as well as the gas and other car expenses for my trip downtown, right? True, but what about the personal element to my expenses? Arguably, I had to eat anyhow, and what about my little side trip to Golf Town on the way back to the office?

Now you’ve got the picture, right? These business expenses will invariably contain some personal element and it is this problem that not only causes a great deal of HCL, they have led to constantly changing sets of rules developed and refined over the years that are so difficult to understand and comply with, that only The Tax Issue could be relied upon to explain them to you, kind reader.

Before we get into the actual details of what can be deducted, let’s talk about who can take these deductions. For the purposes of our discussion, let’s divide the world into two types of taxpayers: those who are employed and those who are in business. If you are in business, then you generally have no restrictions on what you can deduct as an expense as long as it relates to your earning of income. All you have to do is follow the specific rules relating to the MENTA as we will discuss later.

One more general note about business (and forgive the digression) – the calculation of deductible expenses is generally the same, whether the business is run by an individual (sole proprietor), partnership or corporation. So please don’t ask again.

Employees are not so lucky. In fact, they are treated in an opposite fashion. In general, they are allowed no deductions from income unless specifically provided for them under the law. In the case of MENTA, luckily, such provisions do exist, but there are certain conditions.

The most common MENTA deductions allowed to employees are automobile expenses. In order to claim auto expenses, employees must meet strict conditions. They must have a contract (verbal or written) with their employer providing that they are required, as part of their employment duties to travel, and that they must bear the cost of their auto expenses. As evidence, they must have their employer complete and sign a prescribed form stating the terms of their employment and whether auto expenses are reimbursed either directly or through an allowance.

Generally, you cannot deduct meals and entertainment costs if you are an employee. The only exception to this rule is if you earn commissions. A commissioned employee is generally treated similar to a person earning income from a business. That is, there is a general rule allowing the deduction of expenses relating to the earning of that income. The only restriction is that the deductions are limited to the amount of commission earned in the year.

Next time, we’ll be discussing the deduction of meals and entertainment expenses and the HCL that goes along with it!

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What’s Your Tax Issue? Invoices Required

In Business Expenses, Canadian Income Tax on February 22, 2010 at 3:14 pm

The Tax Issue:

I am going through an audit by Revenu Quebec. I have given the auditor my credit card statements as backup for certain expense claims, and he insists that he will disallow any deduction unless I can produce the actual invoice. Am I legally required to provide an invoice to support a tax deduction?

The Answer:

This is a question I get on a regular basis. The answer is no, but…..

First, let’s clarify the ground rules . We are talking here about general business expenses, and not items such as child care or tuition fees which specifically require tax receipts.

Also, we are discussing income tax deductions, not claims for GST/QST/HST inputs tax credits, which do legally require documentation showing the taxes charged and the supplier’s registration numbers.

OK, now let’s talk about tax deductions. There is nothing in the law that obliges you to produce an invoice to back up an expense claimed for income tax purposes. However, the law does place the burden of proof on you to show , on a balance of probabilities, that you have spent the amount and that it qualifies for a tax deduction.

The Quebec auditor has given you his position that he will not allow a deduction unless it is supported with an invoice. That is his right to do, and it is probably the policy of his department. The Minister can assess you based on any assumption he wishes. Here, he is assuming that no expense is deductible without an invoice.

Now, the burden falls on you to provide some other form of proof to support your claim. This is a difficult task without an invoice (which is why the auditor wants one).

Can the proof consist of verbal testimony? Yes, but it rarely works with auditors because they don’t generally have the discretion to go against their audit procedures.

You have a number of chances to state your case. There is usually some form of representation you can make to the auditor and/or the supervisor prior to an assessment. After that, you can object to the assessment at the appeals level. Finally, there are the courts, where you might wind up if the government sticks to its guns on the issue.

So, you can go ahead and let the auditor know that an invoice is not technically required, but then you must provide him (or ultimately, the judge) with sufficient proof to destroy his assumptions.

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The iPhone – Is There An App for CRA?

In Business Expenses, Canadian Income Tax on February 15, 2010 at 12:45 pm

This bit of news comes at a very opportune time for me personally as I teeter on the precipice of purchasing my very own iPhone (or Blackberry, or Zune, or iPod Touch – don’t ask!).

The CRA was asked whether an Apple iPhone is considered depreciable property falling into the same class as general purpose computers.

The iPhone: Yes! It's a computer!

Schedule II of the Income Tax Regulations lists the various classes of depreciable capital property and the applicable rates of CCA. “General-purpose electronic data processing equipment” (i.e., laptops and computers) acquired after March 18, 2007, is included in Class 50 (55% CCA rate) and if it is acquired after January 29, 2009 and before February 2011, subject to certain other conditions, it is included in Class 52 (100% CCA rate).

“General-purpose electronic data processing equipment” is defined as electronic equipment that requires an internally stored computer program that (i) is executed by the equipment, (ii) can be altered by the user, (iii) instructs the equipment that to perform certain functions, and (iv) depends on the data processed to determine the sequence of its execution.

In the CRA’s view, an Apple iPhone would qualify as general-purpose electronic data processing equipment.

Of course, the CRA took the time to caution that only the portion of the cost of the iPhone that is used for the purpose of gaining and producing income would qualify for CCA. This means I have to keep track of all the time I will spend playing PacMan, listening to Lady Ga Ga, taking videos of natural disasters as they occur, Googling myself, chatting with my wife, my kids, my mom and my bookie, then add up this time, divide by the total time I use the iPhone and multiply the result by the total cost of the iPhone and add that amount to the appropriate CCA class (and apply the half-year rule) – and I must do it all on the day I buy the iPhone! Hopefully, there’s an App for that!