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Commonly asked questions
What information and documents do I need to have my tax return prepared?
INFORMATION:
- Complete name as it appears on your SIN card or last notice of assessment;
- Social Insurance Number - SIN; Date of Birth;
- Complete address with postal code; Marital status;
- If you immigrated to Canada or emigrated from Canada during the year, and the date if applicable;
- If you are a Canadian citizen and if you allow CRA to share some info with Elections Canada;
- Dependants information: name, relationship, date of birth, SIN (if applicable), Disability amount (if applicable), Income (if applicable), and Child Care expenses (if applicable);
- Bank account information for direct deposit: branch number, bank institution number, and account number;
- Other relevant information: first time home buyer, Home Buyers' Plan, rent and/or property taxes paid in some provinces, like Ontario (need amount, complete address, number of months lived in the year, name of the landlord or municipality);
- SIN card (copy);
- All your T4s slips - Statements of remuneration paid (your employer will send to you until February 28) and T2202s slips - Education & Textbook Amounts Certificate (your school will send to you until February 28) (copies);
- Child care expenses receipts, Medical expenses receipts, Donation Receipts, and Public transit passes receipts, moving expenses receipts, children arts and fitness activities receipts (copies);
- All other T-slips, example: T3s, T5s, T4A, T4P, etc., and RC62 (copies);
- Self-employment - Statement of Business or Professional Activities - T2125 completed and any other relevant documents (copies);
- Rental Income - Statement of Real Estate Rentals - T776 completed and any other relevant documents (copies);
- Foreign Reporting - if you have foreign property (real estate, investments, shares, etc. of more than CAD$100,000 (market value - value if you would sell it - this is given by you) - Foreign Income Verification Statement - T1135 completed and any other relevant documents, such as, foreign tax return (copies);
- T1013 - Authorizing or Cancelling a Representative completed and signed (copy) (only if it's the first time you have your income tax return prepared by us);
- Engagement Letter - completed, signed and dated (copy).
What is the difference between Tax Return & Tax Refund?
Tax return is filing a statement of one's Income and Expenses including details of assets and liabilities and details of taxes paid (if any). Tax refund is the excess of your withholding and estimated tax payments for the year that you paid over your tax liability. The Federal Government then issues a tax refund if you paid more taxes over the year for your tax bracket.
No Income:
You did not earn any income for the year you are filing your taxes.
T2202 – Tuition, Education, and Textbook Amounts Certificate:
Certificate sent by the school you studied in, until the last day of February, showing the amount of tuition, education, and textbook paid to a particular educational certified institution during a given year. This Certificate is required to prepare your tax return to calculate the student credits you will be entitled to deduct. Without it, we can not deduct student credit. Not all schools provide the T2202, only certified educational institutions. With T2202, we calculate the student credits. These credits are non-refundable, i.e., they do not generate income tax refund, they only reduce the amount of tax payable to zero. The maximum amount of tuition credits that can be used per year is 15% of what was paid for tuition and textbook, on the federal side of your tax return. However, this credit will only be used if you have sufficient income. If this credit is not used or partially used, it may be transferred to other years or to your spouse. Therefore, you do not get back the values you paid in education for the educational institutions in which you studied. You will receive a non-refundable credit if you have the T2202.
T4 – Statement of Remuneration Paid slip:
It reports how much employment income, commissions, taxable allowances and benefits, fishing income, or any other remuneration was earned during a given year. It is used to prepare your tax return. This includes your gross income and Canadian Pension Plan (CPP) discounts, EI – Employment Insurance, and Income Taxes, among others. Employers have until the last day of February to send all T4s to CRA and also a copy to all its employees. If you work in more than one company during the year, you will need all your T4s for your income tax return Canadian.
Public Transit Passes:
Statements and/or receipts for public transportation.
RC62 – Universal Child Care Benefit (UCCB) statement:
The UCCB is a taxable benefit that you receive if you have children under the age of 18 to help cover the cost of child care.
Child Care Expenses:
Child care expenses are amounts you or another person paid to have someone look after an eligible child so that you or the other person could:
- earn income from employment;
- carry on a business either alone or as an active partner;
- attend school under the conditions identified under the Educational program;
- carry on research or similar work, for which you or the other person received a grant.
Medical Expenses Receipts:
Official receipts of eligible medical expenses. The taxpayer, a Canadian tax resident, may deduct eligible medical expenses from the taxpayer, spouse, and dependents, paid in any period within 12 months ending at the end of the calendar year of which the income tax refers, or those expenses which were not deducted from the previous tax return.
T4A – Statement of Pension, Retirement, Annuity, and Other Income:
A T4A Canadian tax information slip is a Statement of Pension, Retirement, Annuity, and Other Income. It is prepared and issued by an employer, a trustee, an estate executor or liquidator, a pension administrator, or a corporate director, to tell you and the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) how much of certain types of income you paid during a tax year and the amount of income tax that was deducted. Use T4As in preparing and filing your Canadian income taxes.
Donation Receipts:
A receipt is a written acknowledgment that a donation was made to a charity. Registered charities can issue “official tax receipts”.
Moving Expenses:
You can be eligible when:
- you moved and established a new home to work or run a business at a new location; or
- you moved to be a student in full-time attendance in a post-secondary program at a university, college or -other educational institution.
- You moved within Canada.
- You moved from outside Canada to a new work location in Canada.
- You moved from Canada to a new work location outside Canada.
- You moved between two locations outside Canada.
Children arts and fitness activities receipts:
The children’s arts tax credit and the children’s fitness tax credit allow you to claim a 15% non-refundable tax credit. The claim is of an amount up to $250 (arts) $500 (fitness) per child per credit on the fees you’ve paid to register a child in a prescribed program of eligible activities (for 2016). Effective for the 2017 and subsequent taxation years, both credits will be eliminated.
T2125 – Statement of Business or Professional Activities:
The form is used to report your business / self-employed income and expenses, including self-employed commission sales. Your net business income is posted to your general income and benefit return and included in your taxable income. You must complete a separate T2125 for each business/ self-employment you own.
T3 – Statement of Trust Income Allocations and Designations:
You receive it if you have investment income from mutual funds in non-registered accounts and from certain trusts. In Québec, you receive a relevé 16. The income may come from your own investments or from an estate trust as inheritance tax.
T5 – Statement of Investment Income slip:
A partnership that receives a T5013 slip, has to report the information on its financial statements for the fiscal period.
T5008 – Statement of securities transactions:
This slip is used to report one transaction (or more than one transaction involving identical securities for the same client) you made for a person. There are three slips printed on each T5008 sheet.
T776 – Statement of Real Estate Rentals form:
You use this form if you own and rent real estate or other property. This form is to report all rental income you received from rented property.
Foreign Property – T1135 Foreign Income Verification:
This must be filed by Canadian resident individuals (for the tax return), at any time of the year, own specified foreign property costing more than $100,000.
Some taxpayers might think that the term “foreign property” just refers to real estate when it refers to a lot more. Find bellow some examples of specified foreign property:
- Funds held outside Canada;
- A life insurance policy you own from a foreign issuer;
- Interest you own in any offshore mutual funds;
- Any real estate you own held outside Canada;
- Shares you own a foreign company;
- Interest you hold in a non-resident trust;
- Bonds or debentures owned from foreign countries, and;