Tag Archives: GenuTax Standard

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.

Does GenuTax Standard Free Software Calculate the New Family Tax Cut Income Splitting Reduction?

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On our 2014 taxes there is a new credit to reduce the tax payable by a 2-parent family with children under the age of 18. The maximum saving is $2 000 and it’s calculated based on parents “splitting” up to $50 000 of income on their federal tax calculations. The math is done on a new 2 page schedule, Schedule 1-A. I checked to see if GenuTax Standard 2014 would automatically calculate and apply this new benefit to a tax return for a married couple with young children, like mine.

Did GenuTax Standard Calculate the Family Tax Cut For Me?

Yes.

Before calculating my own 2014 tax return, I ran a test for a married couple with 2 children, 8 and 19, filing their taxes.
During the Interview process, I clicked on the button “Prepare Returns Together.”

Later into the interview, I reached the Family Tax Cut window. It said:
“Do you or your spouse or common-law partner wish to claim the family tax cut for 2014?
“The family tax cut is a non-refundable credit that could save you or your spouse or common-law partner up to $2000.
“To be able to claim this tax credit, you must have at least one child that ordinarily lived with you or your spouse or common-law partner throughout 2014. The credit is calculated based on the net reduction to your and your spouse or common-law partner’s combined federal taxes if up to $50 000 in taxable income was transferred from the individual with the higher taxable income to his or her spouse or common-law partner. See Help for more information”

And it asks you to select the answer

  • Yes
  • No

I selected Yes.

Still further into the Interview section, after entering income information etc. I reached the
Claim for the Family Tax Cut window. It said:
“The family tax cut that may be claimed is $X,XXX.00. Either you or your spouse or common-law partner may make this claim.
“Which spouse or common-law partner is claiming the family tax cut on their
tax return for 2014”

And it asked you to select the answer

  • Wife
  • Husband

(Actually, it provides their names based on what you entered earlier in the interview. It also states the actual amount of the tax cut that it has calculated, such as $714.37.)

By selecting the right person, the income tax owed by that person was reduced properly by the Family Tax Cut amount.

I ran a variety of cases for fun, to see what would happen.

  • For a very low income family ($36,000 combined) the program advises that there is no Family Tax Cut saving to be applied.
  • At about $55 000 in total family income, earned mostly by one person, a small family tax cut of several hundred dollars is available.
  • At about $125 000 earned only by one of the couple, the maximum family tax cut of about $2 000 is available.

The actual amount depends on the taxable income of each parent.

As usual, the program asks for information about dependent children including their names and dates of birth.

Where Does GenuTax Standard Report the Tax Savings Created by this New Family Tax Cut?

The amount that can be saved is reported during the interview process. You can also see it by printing off the tax return and looking at Schedule 1-A or line 423 of Schedule 1.

Do I Recommend Using a Tax Program to Calculate the Family Tax Cut?

Maybe.

You can fill out Schedule 1-A by hand. It’s boring and takes a bit of time though.

Since you can use StudioTax or GenuTax Standard tax software for free, I’d recommend using one at least to check your work.

How Much Did We Save Thanks to the Family Tax Cut?

Well, let’s just say we can afford one more family skating afternoon but not necessarily with hot chocolate.

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Will you qualify for this new Family Tax Cut? Or is it just another reason to think the government is playing favourites? Please share your views with a comment.