DAVID WILKENFELD, CA, canadian tax CONSULTANT

Posts Tagged ‘Canada’

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Introducing The Tax Issue Tax Organizer for 2011!!

In Canadian Income Tax, Personal Tax, Uncategorized on January 17, 2012 at 2:06 pm

Organizing tax information for your tax preparer can be a daunting task. Do you use a shoebox? a shopping bag? Despite your best intentions, you may not have the time or the knowledge necessary to provide a complete and organized dossier.

Those of use who prepare your taxes just don’t have the time or energy to instruct their clients on how to properly prepare their income tax papers.

And so, as a public service to those beleaguered tax preparers, and to those of you who want your accountant to love you at tax time, The Tax Issue introduces the Tax Issue Tax Organizer.

The Tax Issue Tax Organizer is a free PDF file that you can download and use as an accountant, to give to your client, or as a client to use yourself to help organize the information you give to your tax preparer and make his or her life a little easier.

How to use the Tax Issue Tax Organizer

Simply download and print the Organizer. Each page represents a section that will let you organize the information for that topic. It starts with a list of the relevant documents you should submit to your tax preparer. Attach each page to a separate envelope or file folder containing the documents for that section.

Each page has a list of Do’s and Don’ts to help ensure that you help your tax preparer by including all the necessary documents and receipts he needs to efficiently prepare your taxes.

Finally, each page contains a few tax tips to help guide you through the process.

Even if you prepare your own tax returns, The Tax Issue Tax Organizer is a great tool to help you prepare.

Have a great tax season and enjoy using the Tax Issue Tax Organizer!

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What’s Your Tax Issue? Residence in a Trust

In Canadian Income Tax, Personal Tax, Principal Residence on January 7, 2012 at 8:19 pm

Our House is a very very very fine house

                  –Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young

The Tax Issue

I am a member (beneficiary) of a family trust that was set up years ago by my Dad. The trust currently owns two houses. I live in one, and my sister, who is also a member of the trust, is married and lives in the other. We were told that we will have taxes to pay we sell our homes. Can this be true? Please help, as no one seems to know the answer.

The Answer

The principal residence rules that apply to personal trusts are surprisingly restrictive and can be a trap for the unwary.

A trust is treated as a person for tax purposes. As such, it does have access to the principal residence exemption on the sale of a home. But here’s the kicker: if a trust designates a home as a principal residence for a given year, then every beneficiary of that trust who lived in a home owned by the trust is deemed to have made the designation. And remember, a person can only designate one property as her principal residence. This applies to a trust as well. This means that if you sell the home you are living in and the trust claims it as a principal residence, then when the trust sells your sister’s home, the trust is precluded from making the designation on the second home. Her home becomes ineligible for the exemption for those years even though it may be the only home she’s lived. This might come as a shock, and it seems unfair, but that is the way the law works.

So, let’s look at an example. Say the trust owned your home since 2000 and it is sold in 2012 at a gain of $500,000. Furthermore, let’s assume the trust owned your sister’s home since 1996, and sells in 2012 at a gain of $400,000. If the trust claims the full principal residence exemption on your home, then it will be precluded from claiming the exemption for the years 2000 – 2012 on your sister’s home. In fact, for the 16 years the trust owned your sister’s home, only 4 will qualify, so only 4/16 of the gain will be exempt. (Actually, the formula generously adds 1 year to numerator, so technically 5/16, or $125,000 of the total gain will be exempt).

Taxpayers thinking about placing personal homes in a family trust should always seek professional tax advise.

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Tax Court Rules On Ponzi Scheme Victims

In Canadian Income Tax, Losses on January 3, 2012 at 2:00 am

The Tax Court of Canada has recently confirmed the tax treatment of Ponzi scheme victims as I feared they would in the very first issue of The Tax Issue.

In a Ponzi scheme, taxpayers unwittingly entrust funds to a promoter, who, rather than investing them, uses them to make payments to other investors. The flow of funds continues this way until enough people finally ask for their money back, at which point, the fraud is exposed.

The taxpayer in the case of Johnson (2011 TCC 540) was a winner because the court ruled that in a Ponzi scheme, there is no investment and thus no source of income. The good news for this taxpayer, a victim of Andrew Lech, was that she was one of the few who cashed in her capital after a few years of receiving what she thought was a great return on her investment. The “income” she dutifully reported over the years was held not to be “income from a source” and thus not subject to income tax.The court stated that “the net receipts were nothing more than the shuffle of money among innocent participants.”

The bad news for those who have lost their investment, however, is that there is no tax relief available for the loss of their capital.  In a normal investment, the loss would be considered a capital loss, 50% of which can be used to offset capital gains. For these victims of fraud, since no income source existed, no tax deduction is available on the loss of the investment.

The only consolation is for taxpayers who reported income in past years to amend their returns and request refunds on the tax they paid on the payments received from fraudulent schemes.

Update: The CRA has decided to appeal this decision….To be continued…..

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CRA Weighs In On J.V.’s

In Canadian Income Tax on December 16, 2011 at 2:15 am

 

Last week I attended the Canadian Tax Foundation’s annual conference in Montreal. It’s a 3-day event where accountants, lawyers and government officials get together, sing Irish drinking songs, try on each others’ bow ties, and get into all sorts of wild shenanigans.

My favourite time is CRA round table day. That’s when representatives from the government let us tax practitioners know that they’re on our side, they’re here to help and taxpayers have rights. Then they answer a series of pre-determined questions on tax policy confirming that they are not on our side, help is a four-letter word, and whatever rights we have are readily accessible – in a court of law. Anyway, we forgive them because they’re usually the ones who spike the punch every year at the Arthur Anderson reception.

This year, the CRA was asked about the new partnership year-end rules and joint ventures. As we reported in an earlier post, new rules were introduced in the 2011 budget that will essentially eliminate any tax deferral to a corporation whose year-end does not coincide with that of any partnership in which it holds a significant interest.

A joint venture is not a partnership; however, they are often accounted for on a similar basis, with a year-end being established and each participant picking up its share of income annually. This has always been tolerated by the CRA.

With the new rules in place, the CRA stated that joint ventures will now be treated similar to partnerships. Administratively, they will also allow companies with joint venture interests to take advantage of the same transitional relief afforded to partnerships under the new rules. That is, they will be allowed to include 15% of additional stub-period income in 2012, 20% in 2013, 2014 and 2015, and 25% in 2016.

In a technical bulletin released on the same day, the CRA also stated that, going forward, for taxation years ending after March 22, 2011, income from a joint venture will have to be reported for each participant based on that participant’s fiscal period. For participants with different year-ends that don’t coincide with the joint venture, this will likely create some onerous compliance issues.

Those guys at the CRA always keep us on our toes!

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What’s Your Tax Issue? Home Built By Company

In Canadian Income Tax, Shareholder Benefits on October 3, 2011 at 10:12 am

The Tax Issue

I recently built our “dream” home for 2.50M$. However, not having sufficient funds personally, my professional corporation financed the construction of the house for me, writes off the maintenance, utilities and taxes, and I rent the house from my company at a market value rent, having researched comparable rents in the neighbourhood. Apart from forgoing the principal residence exemption – are there any other detriments to this strategy?

The Answer

Could be. I’m assuming, since you are paying rent, that you’re aware of the shareholder benefit rules. That is, by virtue of the fact that the company has financed your house and pays expenses on your behalf, you are exposed to tax on the value of the benefit you are receiving from the company.

What you may not be aware of is how the CRA might establish the value of the benefit. It could be the market value rent as you have researched, and if so, the rent you’re paying would be enough to offset the taxable amount completely.

In your case, however, it may not be so simple. There is a line of jurisprudence, starting with the case of Youngman v. The Queen, that suggests that the benefit or advantage conferred on you is not merely the right to use or occupy a house; it is the right to use or occupy a house that the company, at your request, had built specially for you in accordance with your specifications. How much would you have had to pay for the same advantage if you had not been a shareholder of the company?

So what is this “alternative” calculation? Generally, the value of the benefit could be calculated by reference to the income the corporation would have earned if its capital had been productively employed and not based on the fair market rental value (which might be considerably lower).

As an example, on a $2.5M capital outlay, the company could have been expected to earn interest in a relatively risk-free investment of, say anywhere from 2% to 5%. This would mean an annual rent of $50,000 to $125,000, plus expenses. If you are paying any less than this in rent, despite what the market rents are in the area, then you could be exposed to a greater taxable benefit than you thought.

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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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Loophole Repairs, Part Two

In Canadian Income Tax on August 16, 2011 at 3:14 pm

In this post, we continue our list of loophole repairs made by the federal government in recent months.

Loophole #3 – Flow-Through Share Donations

In an effort to encourage charitable giving, the law was changed a few years ago to allow a person to donate publicly traded stock to a registered charity without having to recognize and pay tax on any capital gain on the disposition of the stock.

In an effort to facilitate the funding for the exploration of natural resources, tax laws have for many years provided for the existence of “flow-through shares”. Essentially, a resource company issues shares to a taxpayer and then allocates, or “flows through” its exploration expenses, which can be fully deductible to the shareholder. This deduction has its consequences – it reduces the tax cost of the share so that a capital gain will apply if it is sold.

A loophole was created when tax planners found a way to combine the two incentives described above. A taxpayer purchases a flow-through share, receives the related resource deductions, then donates the share to a registered charity, claiming a donation credit, without having to recognize the gain on the disposition of the share. This strategy effectively reduced the cost of making a donation to near zero.

The Fix:

The 2011 federal budget proposes to eliminate the above loophole by restricting the capital gain exemption on donation of shares to the amount by which the value of the donated share exceeds the amount that was originally paid for it (as opposed to the reduced cost), thereby reinstating the tax on the gain attributed to the deductions allowed.

Loophole #4 – Interest on “Adjustable” Loan

Generally, a corporation or partnership records transactions on an accrual basis for tax purposes. When interest is payable on a loan, but remains unpaid at year-end, a deduction is available for “accrued interest” on the loan.

In the case of Collins, a partnership accrued interest on a loan where the principal could be reduced at the borrower’s option by making a final payment before a certain date. Interest, however, continued to accrue on the original principal amount until the option was exercised. The interest was never paid, but the accrued deductions were allowed.

The Fix:

The proposed legislation now provides that in cases where a taxpayer has a “right to reduce” an amount in respect of an expenditure, it cannot make a deduction in respect of that expenditure in excess of the reduced amount.

Loophole #5 – Arm’s Length Interest Payments

Historically, interest paid to non-residents of Canada are subject to withholding tax which can be as high as 25%. There are certain exemptions, one of which now applies to all interest paid to arm’s length parties.

In the case of Lehigh Cement Limited, a company was paying interest to a related foreign person, and was required to deduct withholding tax. In order to circumvent this requirement, the interest portion of the payments were sold to an arm’s length bank. Guarantees were given, and the bank was duly compensated for its trouble, and a loophole was created.

The Fix:

The government has now changed the wording of the withholding tax exemption. Rather that applying to interest paid to a non-arm’s length person, the withholding tax will now also apply to interest paid in respect of a debt owed to a non-arm’s length person.

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Loophole Repairs, Part One

In Canadian Income Tax on August 9, 2011 at 10:23 am

Years ago, when I was first introduced to a tax practitioner, I was compelled to ask him for a list of loopholes I could use in preparing my tax returns so I would pay little or no taxes. After all, that’s what they did, right?

I later learned, of course, that you can avoid paying some taxes all of the time, you can avoid paying all taxes some of the time, but you can’t avoid paying all taxes all of the time. (I think Bob Dylan said that).

Which brings me to the subject of this two-part post – you guessed it – tax loopholes. Rather, the federal government’s recent assault on some tax planning strategies that it has finally seen enough of.

Loophole #1 – Tax Deferral Using Partnerships

Once upon a time a self-employed person starting up a new business could defer income tax by simply choosing an off-calendar fiscal period. While individuals report their taxes every calendar year, the income they reported from a business was based on the earnings for the fiscal period ending in the calendar year. For example, an attorney with a fiscal year end of January 31, 1991 would not have to pay taxes on income for that year until April of 1992, even though 11 months of that income was earned in 1990.

In 1995 the rules were changed to force any individual or partnership with individuals as partners to report their income on a calendar year basis.

That change, however, did not apply to corporations. Nor did it apply to partnerships, all the members of which are corporations. Therefore, a common tax planning tool for a company would be to enter into a partnership with another corporation. The partnership could establish a year-end that was different from the company’s fiscal year, thereby deferring tax on income earned through a partnership.

The Fix:

The 2011 federal budget proposes to eliminate the deferral for corporations earning income through a partnership where the company has a significant interest in the partnership. Partnership year-ends will now have to coincide with the fiscal period of the corporation.

Loophole #2 – Kiddie Capital Gains

In the early 1990’s, family trusts were all the rage. Income splitting with your children was possible by placing shares of a company in a trust. The beneficiaries of the trust could be your children, and dividends paid to the trust were allocated to the beneficiaries. Children with no other sources of income could earn up to $30,000 of dividends without paying any tax!

In 1995, the government eliminated this benefit by introducing the “kiddie tax”. Essentially, now, any dividends paid to a minor child will be taxed at the highest tax rates for individuals.

The above rule, however, does not apply to capital gains. Therefore, a trust could, for example, sell a portion of its shares to a related person and allocate the capital gain to a minor child, thereby skirting around the kiddie tax.

The Fix:

Proposals in the 2011 federal budget take aim at the above loophole by extending the kiddie tax to any capital gain earned by a minor child on a sale to a non-arm’s length party where a dividend on the share would have been subject to the tax. The capital gain will be treated as a dividend, and will not be eligible for the capital gains exemption.

In our next post, more loophole repairs!!