Why I Watch Each Dividend Get Paid to my BMO InvestorLine, CIBC Investor’s Edge and RBC Direct Investing Brokerage Accounts

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I’ve worked with many computer programs over the years and I’ve found errors and bad coding in most of them. I also have a nasty suspicious mind that spots errors in the pricing on meat packages versus the huge posted sign rate and mysterious mistakes appearing in my bank accounts like the one for the safety deposit box I relinquished 4 years previously. All of these mistakes can be fixed if pointed out politely and quickly. So I keep track of each payment of interest, dividends, distributions and return of capital made to my brokerage accounts.

UPDATE: This article is historical, from 2016. I no longer invest with RBC Direct Investing.

What I’ve Found Recently While Watching the Transaction and Activity History for My Brokerage Accounts

Here are three examples of things I’ve discovered by keeping an eye on deposits to my brokerage accounts.

A: New Flyer Industries, NFI, Did Not Pay a Dividend in February 2016 but Why?

Tracking the dividend payments alerted me to a change at New Flyer Industries. Although in all of 2015 and in January of 2016 it paid a tidy monthly dividend, in February 2016 nothing popped into my account.

Did NFI Cancel or Suspend Its 2016 Dividends or Cut Them?

I checked in with BMO InvestorLine via their secure email app. The reply was that NFI had not paid BMO any money to be distributed in trust as dividends nor had BMO received any notification of a pending dividend payment for February.
So I went to the investor Relations section at New Flyer Industries’ website.

New Flyer Industries Switches to Quarterly Dividend for 2016

I scanned the NFI News Releases but only found a reference to the December declaration of the dividend payable in January 2016.

I had to actually open a presentation to investors made in January 2016 to find what I was looking for and it was good news.

NFI is just changing to a quarterly payment schedule from its old method of making a distribution monthly.

Good News! NFI Plans to Increase Its Dividend in 2016

The news was actually better than I’d hoped: New Flyer also plans to increase its dividend by 12.9% starting in April 2016! That will raise the total annual dividend from $0.62CAD to $0.70.

This news will be officially announced in March 2016 by the Board of Directors if all goes to plan.

The record date will likely be March 31, 2016 with the dividend payable on April 15 2016.

The January 2016 payment was the last monthly payment.

So all good news there.

B: Keg Royalties Income Fund Trust Units Paid a Bonus Distribution in January 2016

I was pleasantly surprised to find I had too much money in my account after the Keg, KEG.UN, paid its distributions for January 28 2016. A closer look revealed they had paid the usual monthly distribution plus a second one which was almost as large.
I checked on the internet and discovered that a special distribution was declared on December 15 2015.

Free money. Cool!

C: Bank of Nova Scotia Declares Two Dividend Increases in One Year

I usually know a dividend increase is on its way because I keep an eye on the RedFlagDeals Investing discussion forum where members share news about dividend increases for Canadian companies. However, a few times I’ve been caught off guard when a company decides to increase its dividend twice in one year.

In 2015 BNS did just that. They raised the dividend in April and again in October. While dividend increases are easy to accept, dividend decreases are not. Keeping an eye on my transaction history helps me make sure I’m using the right projected income numbers for our budget. That’s not important right now when I’m just planning for retirement but it will be very important when we actually retire.

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Do you keep a close eye on the transaction or activity history for your brokerage account? Ever notice anything that worried or surprised you? Please share your experiences with a comment.

What’s New for Tax Time for Your 2015 Return Due April 2016 Including the New Auto-fill Return Software Feature

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Do We Still Get to “Income Split” For 2015 If We Are a Married Couple with Young Children?

Although this option will soon be gone, for the 2015 taxation year it is still possible for a married couple with children to receive a tax credit of up to $2000. You calculate your eligibility for this credit in the same way as for 2014.

How Can I Get My Tax Forms and Guides Without Leaving Home?

Don’t forget you don’t have to trudge to the post office to pick up your income tax guides and forms. Nor do you just have to wade through them online. You can order free mail delivery of any forms or guides from the CRA.

Go the CRA webpage at http://www.cra-arc.gc.ca/cgi-bin/puborder.cgi?lang=en and complete the Online Order form.

Although I use free tax filing software like GenuTax and StudioTax, I still like to have a paper copy of the guides and forms to review. I ordered my forms a week ago and they arrived today.

What Free Software Can I Download to Help Calculate and NETFILE my Tax Return?

I have used two of the free tax programs in past years. (Well, I send them a donation but I decide how much and they are small Canadian businesses not large impersonal corporations.) They are

  • StudioTax and
  • Genutax Standard.

StudioTax is now fully approved to file this year’s returns using NETFILE. You can download it to your computer from their website at http://studiotax.com/en/

Genutax Standard is still waiting on the CRA to issue their final approval but hope to receive it on March 2, 2016. When it’s approved, you’ll be able to download it from their website at http://genutax.ca/

As usual, I’ll be running some test scenarios this year to see if I like how the software is working.

In particular, I’ll be interested to see if they have taken advantage of a new CRA option where you can “preload” your forms with some information from your previous year’s tax returns.

New Way To Reduce Typing Old Tax Return (2014) Information Into Your New (2015) Tax Return in Spring of 2016

If you use a computer program to help complete your income tax return, you may be able to save yourself some typing this year.  The CRA has created a bridge to allow certified software to download your information from your previous year’s tax return into this year’s program. For example, it can download information about

  • Tuition and education credits you are carrying forward
  • Capital losses you are carrying forward
  • RRSP contributions you did not deduct yet

And so on.

It will also try to fill in your fields for forms containing information for this year’s tax return including tax slips such as your

  • T4 Income Statement from Employer
  • T4A Statement of Pension or Other Income
  • T4A(P) Statement of CPP Payments
  • T4RIF Statement of Retirement Income Fund Income
  • T5 Statement of Investment Income
  • RC62 Universal Child Care Benefit Statement
  • RC210 Working Income Tax Benefit Advance Payments Statement

You can read more details on the CRA website at: http://www.cra-arc.gc.ca/auto-fill/
Not all tax programs are capable of getting this information automatically. Check your program before you get your hopes up! (It looks like StudioTax may have this feature. If so, I’ll try a test of it.)

Also, be very very sure to review your tax return before filing it. It’s quite possible for a T5 or other important slip to be missing from the government’s website. It’s up to you to make sure you are declaring all of your income, not them. If you don’t declare it all, they can zing you with very harsh penalties and interest charges. Read it through very carefully before you NETFILE or mail it in!

Caution: Watch Out If You Provide Your Email Address!

Remember if you give the CRA your email address you are agreeing that they will stop mailing you your Notice of Assessment and other important letters. Instead, they will send you an email telling you to sign in to your online My Account profile to read these letters.

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Have you used the new auto-fill option with your tax software? What did you think? Please share your experiences with a comment.