Tag Archives: outsourcing

What’s New for Tax Time for Your 2015 Return Due April 2016 If You Have Children?

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It’s that most horrible time of year again: tax time. I got my forms in the mail and took a peek at the T1-General Guide. I don’t usually look at car accidents but somehow I can’t help but look at the tax guide once I see it sitting on the table….Here’s what I found that’s new for a 2015 tax return for filers who have children.

Why Did I Get a RC62 Universal Child Care Benefit Statement in the Mail?

If your children were 6 or older but younger than 18 you may have received payments last year of the revised Universal Child Care Benefit.  It may have been quite a while since you last received any UCCB and you may have forgotten that it is taxable. Or at $60/month per eligible child aged 6-17, you might not even have noticed the money landing in your account.

Now, unfortunately, since the election is long past, we have to pay the taxes on that money.

That’s right, they didn’t withhold any taxes at source but the “benefit” is taxable income in the hands of the lower-earning parent.

So I will get to pay back about half of what we received.

There is also no longer any non-refundable tax credit for having a child of any age.

You report the amount you received, which is reported in Box 10 of your RC62, on line 117 of your return if you are the lower-net-income spouse or common-law partner.

What Happened to My Federal Non-refundable Tax Credit for My Children?

You used to claim $2 255 per child of the appropriate age on the Federal Tax Schedule 1 form on line 367. (By the time you finished the math, it was only 15% of that amount, or $338.25 per child.) If you are looking for it on the 2015 schedule, you won’t find it.

The problem with the non-refundable credit was that if a family was really low income, they weren’t paying any tax so they could not apply the credit to save any money.

Starting in 2015, the credit has been removed and instead all families get a taxable Universal Child Care Benefit. If the family is really low income, they will not have to pay any tax on this benefit and therefore it will help them. If a family has a moderate or high income, they will have to pay back some or a lot of this benefit both as federal income tax and as provincial income tax.

If your income was $75 000 a year before the $720 a year benefit for your one 7-year-old child, you will probably only get a benefit of $483 after tax in Ontario, based on using the Ernst and Young 2015 online personal tax calculator.

That’s about $145 more than the old non-refundable tax credit gave you. But it’s a lot less than the $720 that the advertisements were bleating about before the election!

If your income was $200 000  a year before the $720 a year benefit for your one 7-year-old child, you will probably only get a benefit of $346 after tax in Ontario, based on using the Ernst and Young 2015 online personal tax calculator. That’s very close to the old $338.25 per child that the non-refundable tax credit covered.

New Tax Form: The T4-A(P) for the CPP Children’s or Child’s Benefit

Many taxpayers have been dismayed to open envelopes this month and find a new tax slip: a T4-A(P) for their child or children’s benefit received from the CPP because one of the child’s parent’s has died. In previous years the government did not automatically send out this slip.

You can read what needs to be done with the slip by the parent, or child, over on Helpful Crooks.

Stay tuned for more exciting tax news!

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Does your mail box suddenly start overflowing around this time of year with tax slips? Did you get any new ones this year? Please share your experiences with a comment.

Does the Label in Your Shorts Say Stanfields?

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Canadians are talking this week about keeping jobs in Canada. First RBC was caught shipping IT jobs offshore, the kind of high-paying intellectual white collar “information” jobs the federal government used to brag we would keep while we off-shored the “dirty” work. Then this week a terrible tragedy in Bangladesh called into question the responsibility Canadian companies feel or don’t feel for the safety of their overseas workers. In both cases, many Canadians started asking why can’t we just keep the work here at home? Our unemployment rates are high. Our own youth need work.

Looking at Labels Seems a Lost Cause

I’m old enough (yes, I’m pre-NAFTA) that I can remember checking labels when shopping, especially when I was growing up and shopping with my Mom. We consciously chose to buy clothes with the little maple leaf and Made in Canada woven on the itchy tag. It often cost a few bucks more but we knew people in Canada (well, if you call Quebec “Canada”) that would benefit from the work.

Fast forward to when I started shopping with my own children. You can certainly find a UN’s worth of countries on the clothing labels but the Canada flag is found only on a very few and far between items. Even brands that used to feel Canadian (Roots, Northern Reflections, Canada Marshlands) seem to outsource and overseas part or most of their production.

Low Cost Labels vs. High Cost Cash Grabs

I doubt we’re likely to return to the days of most kids t-shirts being Made in Canada. At $2-4 new from Walmart or Old Navy people are unlikely to switch to paying $8 and up just for a maple leaf on the label. And, in fact, those aren’t the outsourced overseas’d products that bother me.

I do resent, though, paying $200 for a clothing item that the seamstress was paid $1 or less to produce. When high cost labels use low cost, exploited labour to produce their products, I balk.

Coach Versus Baggins and Baggins

When my husband, who is probably the best man I know, wanted to buy me a new purse for a gift, he chatted with some of the women he works with. He discovered Coach was a brand that was popular that year. When he floated the idea in front of me, though, he had no trouble understanding and supporting my view. Coach, I explained, produce almost all of their bags in another country. They pay very little to the people who work so hard to cut and combine the leathers. Then they turn around and charge their customers a fortune.

I’d far rather buy a hand crafted leather purse from a Canadian entrepreneur. A past favourite was Baggins and Baggins. (Any LOR fans out there?!)  They seem to have slipped into retirement. But others I like including Karen Gunna are still hand crafting items worth more than every cent they charge.

My parents and some of my relatives feel this same way about higher end purchases. So when they bought adorable clothes for my toddlers, they bought ones made in Canada. They cost more but the designs were more exclusive and the employment went to Canadians.

Open to Opportunities but Not Obsessing

So now we keep our eyes open and look for labels that show an opportunity to buy Canadian. Facing a whole rack of boxers, my husband will pull out the Stanfields (you still have to check WHICH Stanfields as some our not MIC) instead of the Jockeys. I’ve found a surprising number of socks and sweats at Walmart (of all places) that are actually Made in Canada.

And for a large variety of reasons, we do a lot of shopping from small entrepreneurs either at their studios or at ‘craft’ sales. Canadians have some amazing merchandise on offer if you can find it.

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Do you try to support Canadian businesses? Or do you buy whatever best fits your budget with nary a glance at the country of origin? Please share your experiences with a comment.