Personal tax returns preparation for business owners & their families
Personal tax preparation for business owners, their spouses, and their children can be enhanced by expert tax planning to ensure the family’s business structure is set up to minimize taxes.
We’re experts in ever-evolving tax laws and regulations. We can identify deductions, credits, and exemptions that individuals might overlook, ensuring you comply with the new Tax on Split Income (TOSI) rules. We will help protect your wealth and your company’s value by helping you navigate the complex terrain of tax filings.
Gathering information to complete your personal tax return can be a pain but it must be done. You will need to gather all the tax information slips (such as T3s, T4s, T5s, T5008s etc.) for you, your spouse, and your children. You will also need records or receipts to support your personal expenses, deductions and credits – which tend to change from year to year as governments come and go.
For example, since 2016, due to a change in government, Canadian taxpayers have lost the Transit Pass credit, the Child Fitness tax credit, the Child Arts tax credit, Textbook credits, and Dependents tax credits. If your accountant is handling your personal tax returns, you will need to deliver this information in a timely manner to ensure your return is filed on time.
Why you should use a personal tax return service
“For the most part, personal tax preparation is fairly basic as long as you have good books, and records and you have properly prepared all the required information. But like anything, it takes time and energy. In addition, the tax rules change from year to year and the average taxpayer may find it difficult to follow all these changes. We’ve outlined below why you may interested in using our personal tax return service.
Holistic tax planning
At Achen Henderson CPAs, we handle the entire backend for our clients’ businesses and we’re often involved in their personal financial planning. Therefore, it makes sense that we would complete their personal tax returns as we already have a lot of the background information we need to do so. Furthermore, our Audit Shield program covers not only your corporate tax filings but also your personal tax returns. That means that fees incurred to respond to the CRA or defend a personal tax filing are generally covered. Most importantly, we free up our clients’ time so they can focus on the activities that matter to them.
Expert knowledge & up-to-date information
A key benefit of using our personal tax return service is that we know the CRA’s audit programs extremely well. We often have some indication as to which credits and deductions they’ll be reviewing in a particular year, so we can anticipate problem areas to ensure that those things are correct before your personal return is filed. Correct tax filings reduce the risk that the CRA will disagree with items reported on your personal tax return, however, it will not reduce the costs associated with responding to CRA inquiries.
Automatic reminders & guidance
At personal tax time, Achen Henderson CPAs emails out a simple online checklist for each of our small business owners to complete. This ensures that we don’t miss anything, and it greatly simplifies the process of having your personal tax returns prepared. If you subscribe to one of our service packages, the fees for preparing your personal tax returns are likely already included.
What you need to file personal tax returns
Here is some of the information you’ll need to provide to have your personal taxes prepared:
- Personal details about you and your spouse, including name, address, birth date, and social insurance number
- Foreign income verification for foreign property that you own worth $100,000 (CDN$) or more
- Information about changes in your financial situation over the past year, such as declaring bankruptcy, closing a bank or investment account, or refinancing a business
- Information about your dependents, including childcare amounts
- Information about pension income, including Canada Pension Plan and Old Age Security as well as foreign pensions, RRIP and RRSP payments and withdrawals, and payments from a Retirement Compensation Account
- Information about investments, including income you earned from your investments, advisor / management fees you paid, professional fees you paid for tax and accounting advice, and a realized capital gains and loss report
- Whether you sold your principal residence in the past year
- Salaries and dividends paid to you by your business
- Any rental income you earned in the last year
- Details about proprietor / self-employment or partnership income
- Any RRSP contributions you made
- Information about medical expenses for yourself, your spouse, and your children; charitable donations; tuition amounts; political contributions; and student loan interest
We’re here to help if you need any assistance finding some of this information.
Streamline Personal Tax Management
Contact us today to learn how we can help you with your personal and corporate tax returns, or check out our accounting and bookkeeping service packages. They’ll take much of the burden of running a business and preparing taxes off your shoulders, freeing you up to build their businesses and enjoy your life.
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