Is the CRA Extending the Tax Deadline for 2021? Will I owe taxes on my government benefits? Working from home, eligible for home office expenses? Digital news subscription expenses, am I eligible? These are some of the questions our clients have come to us with, take a look at this article for the answers plus more....
Due to COVID-19, this is a tax season like no other and there are new rules and deadlines. Here is what you need to know about some of the changes: Is the CRA Extending the Tax Deadline for 2021? Even though 2020 has been a complex tax season, the Canada Revenue Agency has NOT extended the tax filing deadline. The due date remains as April 30 for most Canadians, and June 15 for self-employed people. Will I owe taxes on my government benefits? The benefits listed below are considered taxable income, so the government has introduced the tax-payment deferral to help out the many Canadians who will have to pay taxes on their benefit payments. Eligible benefits: Canada emergency response benefit (CERB) Canada emergency student benefit (CESB) Canada recovery benefit (CRB) Canada recovery caregiving benefit (CRCB) Canada recovery sickness benefit (CRSB) Employment Insurance benefits Similar provincial emergency benefits Working from home, eligible for home office expenses? Due to COVID-19, many Canadian employees worked from home during 2020, in return they may be eligible for a home office tax deduction. If you worked from home more than 50 per cent of the time for at least four consecutive weeks last year, you may qualify. For more info:https://www.canada.ca/en/revenue-agency/services/tax/individuals/topics/about-your-tax-return/tax-return/completing-a-tax-return/deductions-credits-expenses/line-229-other-employment-expenses/work-space-home-expenses/how-claim.html Digital news subscription expenses, am I eligible? The government is offering a tax credit to those who subscribed to digital news services in 2020. You can claim up to $500 for amounts you paid in 2020 for qualifying subscription expenses. You must have paid the amounts to a qualified Canadian journalism organization that does not hold a license to broadcast, for a digital news subscription to content that is primarily original news. For more information please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/cra-covid-benefits-1.5928069 https://www.canada.ca/en/services/taxes/income-tax/personal-income-tax.html OUR DEADLINES REMAIN THE SAME!
As the CRA deadlines have not changed, we would like to remind our clients the deadline to submit your documents to our office is fast approaching. Friday, April 09 – deadline to deliver all tax information to our office (CRA deadline for submission is Thursday, April 30). Friday, May 21 – deadline for self-employed individuals to deliver all tax information to our office (CRA deadline for submission is June 15). Please note however any tax liability is required to be submitted on or before April 30. If you decide to pay your debt to CRA after April 30, you will be assessed interest commencing May 1 until the debt is settled. Please email us at tax@feltham-associates.ca once you have FINISHED uploading all of your documents to portal, we only check the portal after we know that you have completed this step. Once we complete our preparation of your tax return, we will publish the return(s) to your personal portal in “draft” form for you to review. If you do not wish to have us use the portal, we can make an alternative plan for providing you with the draft in a secure form. **Please note, we are unable to provide drafts via regular email as the use of email for transmitting confidential financial information is not in alignment with privacy legislation. Should you have any questions or concerns, please do not hesitate to contact our tax team at (709)364-7300 or via email tax@feltham-associates.ca. We are all more than willing to assist you to ensure your 2020-2021 tax experience is a pleasant one. We would like to thank you very much for your business during 2020 and look forward to continuing our business relationship into 2021.