My name is Mark Goodfield. Welcome to The Blunt Bean Counter ™, a blog that shares my thoughts on income taxes, finance and the psychology of money. I am a Chartered Professional Accountant. This blog is meant for everyone, but in particular for high net worth individuals and owners of private corporations. My posts are blunt, opinionated and even have a twist of humour/sarcasm. You've been warned. Please note the blog posts are time sensitive and subject to changes in legislation or law.

Monday, April 13, 2015

Confessions of a Tax Accountant

From the inception of my blog, I have written a weekly confessional during income tax season discussing interesting or contentious income tax and filing issues. This year I have abandoned the "confessions" as I figured I would probably just complain about the Foreign Reporting T1135 Form for six straight weeks – and I did not want to inflict this upon you. However, today for old time's sake, I will bring back the confessions for a guest appearance.

As usual, I only received about 40% of my client's tax returns before April 1st as they were waiting for their T3 and T5013 slips (by the way, the fact the T5013 essentially only has numerical  boxes with no written descriptions drives most accountants mad). For many of the returns that arrived before March 31st I did not even attempt to complete them because I knew there were additional tax slips to come. I must get 15 emails a day with the email header “opps, I just received another tax slip”. No one cares about this other than accountants who have to do all their work in a condensed three-week period, so I will stop the whining now. This is why I stopped with these confessions, it just provides me a license to grumble.

In all honesty, there have not been that many new issues this tax season. The same old issues are always there. For many accountants, the biggest issue is how much time they spend chasing down information and preparing the T1135 Form, let alone the additional cost to clients. However, one new issue that has arisen a few times this year, as result of the Family Tax Cut, is co-coordinating the family claim when spouses and/or common law spouses use different accountants, or one spouse prepares their return themselves. I write about this issue below.

An Accountant for each Spouse


Do you and your spouse have your tax returns prepared by different accountants or is one of you a do-it-yourselfer? If so, I suggest, (especially if your family can access the family tax cut) you reconsider this decision next year, as you may be missing out on some significant tax savings.

Spouses may choose to use separate accountants for some of the following reasons:
  • secrecy
  • a spouse may like to keep his/her finances separate (i.e. he/she only contributes to a joint account to pay household expenses)
  • one of the spouses really likes his/her accountant and has a history with them and does not want to change accountants.
Using two accountants may result in either the family not utilizing all its tax credits and deductions or the more common issue, they duplicate claiming credits and deductions; which may cause the CRA to re-assess and/or request family information that is often time consuming to obtain and provide.

This year the possible dysfunction in using two accountants has been exacerbated with the family tax cut. Now, a decision must be made as to which spouse will make the claim and the claimant requires various tax information from their spouse that is not readily available to the accountant preparing the return.

In addition to the family tax cut, a couple will benefit from a single accountant preparing both returns in respect of these deductions and credits:

a) Child care expense

b) Child credits such as the fitness and arts credits

c) Medical expenses

d) Charitable donations

Furthermore, where you and your spouse have joint investment accounts and don’t use the same accountant, it is cumbersome to report split interest, dividend and capital gains income. In these cases, there is often either duplication in reporting income or one spouse misses reporting their ½ of their income entirely.

For the reasons I note above, let alone the extra tax preparation costs, I suggest you and your spouse or partner consider using the same accountant to effectively capitalize on the spousal and/or family benefits.

This site provides general information on various tax issues and other matters. The information is not intended to constitute professional advice and may not be appropriate for a specific individual or fact situation. It is written by the author solely in their personal capacity and cannot be attributed to the accounting firm with which they are affiliated. It is not intended to constitute professional advice, and neither the author nor the firm with which the author is associated shall accept any liability in respect of any reliance on the information contained herein. Readers should always consult with their professional advisors in respect of their particular situation.

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