RRSP Contributions – just because a taxpayer has made an eligible contribution is no reason to automatically claim the deduction.  If a contribution takes a taxpayer into a lower tax bracket – consider not claiming all of the contribution and using it next year against higher taxable income.

Rollovers – Remember that theT2057 is an election for the deemed proceeds to be less than FMV. It does NOT replace disposition disclosure on the schedule 3. When you do a T2057 – make sure the schedule 3 on the T1 matches.

Low Income Taxpayers – You don’t need to prepare a tax return if do not have tax payable. However, for younger taxpayers – maybe working part-time – if you don’t file a return they don’t get “earned income” for RRSP purposes.  Students could end up with a nice RRSP contribution limit for their first year of full-time work if returns have been filed for all university years.

Snow Bird Clients – Now that crossing the border is dated and tracked by immigration for CRA and IRS, you might want to remind your clients to file treaty based protection returns.

Deceased Clients – Two big things.  The first is checking for items that could be on “rights or things” return – especially for clients with shares in private corporations.  The next thing is due to the changes in testamentary trust rules – you might want to optimize on the maximum 36 months of marginal rates allowed to the estate before the assets flow into a testamentary trust.

Provided to TheGAAP.net by:
Michael Fromstein
Integrated Tax Specialist Services
www.professionalspecialist.ca
416-786-7644