Life Insurance and Insured Investments are offered through Canadian Financial Strategies, Inc.
Offering insured investments, term and permanent life insurance, annuities, health & dental, private health services plans. Have you sheltered all available investments? What are you worth to your family and loved ones?
Mutual Funds offered through Keybase Financial Group
We take an independent, integrated financial planning approach to your long-term financial needs. Our solutions include financial & tax planning, mutual fund investments, GICs, and bank products.
Tax Filing Tips for your 2019 Return– Including What’s New?
A few tax tips for Alberta income tax filers including what’s new:
Registered Retirement Savings Plan (RRSP). While it may be too late to contribute to your RRSP this year, you do have lots of time to plan for the following tax return so that you can be sure to use the deduction available to you.
Your Tax-Filing Deadline is April 30, which is the date to both file and pay tax. If you are self-employed, the deadline to file taxes is June 15 (but you must pay amounts due by April 30).
Avoid Late Payments of tax owing are subject to late filing penalties and daily interest. You can easily solve this by filing your taxes and making a payment by the due date!
Tax Slips & Notifications require patience since often it can take until mid-March to receive all of the documentation that you need. If you have filed too early, you may need to resubmit.
Alberta Leadership Adjustment Rebate – No more carbon tax. This also means lower-to-middle income taxpayers will no longer receive this benefit, as it has been eliminated effective July 1, 2019.
Alberta Climate Action Incentive – The federal government has imposed its own carbon tax benefit for Albertans effective 2020 but paid when you file your 2019 tax return. All taxpayers in Alberta, not just lower-income, will receive this incentive. It consists of a basic amount and an additional supplement for residents of small and rural communities. The basic amount will increase over three years (a family of 4 will see an increase from $888 in 2019 to $1,200 in 2021). This benefit is significantly larger than in other provinces.
Alberta Child and Family Benefit – This new benefit is set to replace two existing provincial aids – the Alberta Child Benefit and the Alberta Family Employment Tax Credit. This is good news for many since it will mean an increase to $5,120 from $4,999 for lower-income earners. Fewer families will qualify however, due to lowered income thresholds.
Tuition and Education Tax Credits – Unfortunately, eliminated for Albertans. Students can claim prior to 2020. This also coincides with the Alberta budget which eliminates tuition freeze and allows for a 7% increase in institutional fees with an additional overall 10%: which together could mean a 30% increase over three years.
Tax Bracket Freezing & Tax De-Indexing – Tax bracket thresholds and personal basic amounts will be frozen at the 2019 levels for 2020 later years. What this means is that while your income may increase according to inflation, it is not indexed and you may thus be charged a higher tax rate on the upper portion.
The Alberta Business Advantage – general corporate tax rates are being reduced from the current 12% to 8% by 2022. This is great news for many small-to-medium business operators. On the flip side, many business-related tax credits have been eliminated including The Alberta Investor Tax Credit, The Community Economic Development Corporation Tax Credit, The Capital Investment Tax Credit, and The Interactive Digital Media Tax Credit.
Joanne David BA CFP FCSI
Book Your No Obligation Financial and Portfolio Review
Joanne David CFP FCSI
