4 - Blog - Jones & O’Connell LLP

When You Make a Mistake on Your Tax Return

By Amanda CoombesAccounting, Auditing, Tax & Consulting NewsMay 2, 20240 comments

For the majority of Canadians, the due date for filing of an individual tax return for the 2023 tax year was Tuesday April 30, 2024. (Self-employed Canadians and their spouses have until Monday June 17, 2024 to get that return filed.) When things go entirely as planned and hoped, ...

How to Know You're Really Hearing From the CRA

By Amanda CoombesAccounting, Auditing, Tax & Consulting NewsApril 25, 20240 comments

Most Canadians rarely have reason to interact with the tax authorities, and for most people, that’s the way they like it. In the vast majority of cases, Canadians file their tax returns each spring, receive their refund or pay any balance of taxes owing, and forget about taxes ...

How, When, and Where to Pay Your Taxes for 2023

By Amanda CoombesAccounting, Auditing, Tax & Consulting NewsApril 18, 20240 comments

Our tax system is, for the most part, a mystery to individual Canadians. The rules surrounding income tax are complicated and it can seem that for each and every rule there is an equal number of exceptions or qualifications. There is, however, one rule which applies to every individual ...

Reduing the 2023 Tax Bill - Some Tax Filing Strategies for Those Over Age 65

By Amanda CoombesAccounting, Auditing, Tax & Consulting NewsApril 11, 20240 comments

No one likes paying taxes, but for taxpayers who live on a fixed income having to pay a large tax bill can mean real financial hardship – and the majority of Canadians who live on fixed incomes are, of course, those who are over 65 and retired. Adding to their financial stress ...

What to do When You Can't Pay Your Tax Bill on Time

By Amanda CoombesAccounting, Auditing, Tax & Consulting NewsApril 4, 20240 comments

Most taxpayers sit down to do their annual tax return, or wait to hear from their tax return preparer, with some degree of trepidation. In most cases taxpayers don’t know, until their return is completed, what the “bottom line” will be, and it’s usually a case ...

Reporting the Sale of a Principal Residence During 2023

By Amanda CoombesAccounting, Auditing, Tax & Consulting NewsMarch 28, 20240 comments

While owning one’s own home brings with it many intangible benefits, home ownership also provides some very significant financial advantages. Specifically, it provides the opportunity to accumulate wealth through increases in home equity, and to realize that wealth on a truly ...

Some Last-Minute Tax Filing Strategies - What (and What Not) to Claim

By Amanda CoombesAccounting, Auditing, Tax & Consulting NewsMarch 21, 20240 comments

Most Canadians don’t turn their attention to their taxes until sometime around the end of March or the beginning of April, in time to complete the return for 2023 ahead of the April 30, 2024 filing deadline. While that approach leaves plenty of time to get the return prepared ...

Using Home Equity to Generate Cash Flow

By Amanda CoombesAccounting, Auditing, Tax & Consulting NewsMarch 14, 20240 comments

For the past two years, Canadians have had to continually adjust their household budgets to accommodate price increases for nearly all goods and services. The impact of rising prices is felt most by those who are living on a fixed income and who, of necessity, spend a larger than ...

What’s new on the tax return for 2023

By Amanda CoombesAccounting, Auditing, Tax & Consulting NewsMarch 7, 20240 comments

While our tax laws require Canadian residents to complete and file a T1 tax return form each spring, that return form is never exactly the same from year to year. Some of the changes found in each year’s T1 are the result of the indexing of many aspects of our tax system, as ...

How and when to file your 2023 tax return

By Amanda CoombesAccounting, Auditing, Tax & Consulting NewsFebruary 29, 20240 comments

Each year, the Canada Revenue Agency publishes a statistical summary of the tax filing patterns of Canadians during the previous filing season. The final statistics for 2023 show that the vast majority of Canadian individual income tax returns – just over 92%, or just under ...

Taking advantage of pension income splitting

By Amanda CoombesAccounting, Auditing, Tax & Consulting NewsFebruary 22, 20240 comments

Income tax is a big-ticket item for most retired Canadians. Especially for those who are no longer paying a mortgage, the annual tax bill may be the single biggest expenditure they are required to make each year. Fortunately, the Canadian tax system provides a number of tax deductions ...

RRSPs, TFSAs, and FHSAs - making the annual choice

By Amanda CoombesAccounting, Auditing, Tax & Consulting NewsFebruary 15, 20240 comments

If there is one invariable “rule” of financial and retirement planning of which most Canadians are aware, it is the unquestioned wisdom of making regular contributions to one’s registered retirement savings plan (RRSP). And it is true that for several decades the ...

How to respond to a tax instalment notice

By Amanda CoombesAccounting, Auditing, Tax & Consulting NewsFebruary 8, 20240 comments

Sometime during the month of February, millions of Canadians will receive some unexpected mail from the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA). That mail, entitled simply “Instalment Reminder”, will set out the amount of instalment payments of income tax to be paid by the recipient ...

Employment Insurance Premiums for 2024

By Amanda CoombesAccounting, Auditing, Tax & Consulting NewsJanuary 25, 20240 comments

The Employment Insurance (EI) premium rate for 2024 is set at 1.66%. Yearly maximum insurable earnings are set at $63,200, making the maximum employee premium $1,049.12. As in previous years, employer premiums are 1.4 times the employee premium. The maximum employer premium for 2024 ...

Canada Pension Plan Contributions for 2024

By Amanda CoombesAccounting, Auditing, Tax & Consulting NewsJanuary 18, 20240 comments

Changes made to the Canada Pension Plan (CPP) beginning in the 2024 calendar year will create a two-tier contribution structure. First-tier contributions for 2024 are set at 5.95% of pensionable earnings between $3,500 and $68,500. Second-tier contributions for 2024 are set at 4.0% ...

Federal individual tax rates and brackets for 2024

By Amanda CoombesAccounting, Auditing, Tax & Consulting NewsJanuary 11, 20240 comments

The indexing factor for federal tax credits and brackets for 2024 is 4.7%. The following federal tax rates and brackets will be in effect for individuals for the 2024 tax year. Income level Federal tax rate $15,705 ...