Personal Tax Services

Personal Income Tax Services are growing in complexity for the 2020 personal taxation year and we’re here to help navigate these waters.

Personal Taxes and Covid-19

The complex issue of multiple Covid-19 individual benefit programs, including the Canada Recovery Benefit (“CRB”), Canada Recovery Caregiving Benefit (“CRCB”), Canada Recovery Sickness Benefit (“CRSB”) and regular Employment Insurance benefits all have the potential of being clawed back as the Canadian government has done a very poor job of communicating how these benefits work and who is entitled to receive them.

The family grouping rules are also becoming more complex as it is currently not clear how the financial assistance programs will be effected by other family income from spouses and issues of marital breakdown.

Our firm will be spending extra time researching and developing tax strategies to deal with the implementation of the above listed Federal and Ontario Covid-19 financial relief programs. 

Home Office Expenses

The other major change for the 2020 personal taxation year will be the deductibility of home office expenses, given the huge increase in people working from home.  The home office deduction has been very difficult to claim in the past and often would not survive a CRA audit.  This taxation year will include some type of home office deduction without additional documentation being required from your employer.

Increasing House Values in the Ottawa Region

Another significant issue that is evolving is proper planning for and taxation use of the personal capital gains exemption for the sale of an individual’s principle residence given the large increases in house values in the Ottawa Region.  The capital gains exemption calculation can be complex and require a separate planning session dedicated to it.

Our firm is long experienced in carefully considering and advising on a whole host of additional personal taxation issues, including:

• pension splitting for seniors
• medial expense deduction and family optimization of medical expense deductibility
• personal capital gains and losses caused by Covid-19 lockdowns
• the timing of the RRSP deduction claim

The potential lower taxable personal incomes during the 2020 taxation year may make it beneficial for the individual RRSP contribution deduction to be pushed forward to the 2021 taxation year.