Five ways the CRA and the Government can fix the tax system and get rid of some January blues
Kim Moody: What's the solution to the CRA's compounding numerous debacles and tax filing challenges?
The mid-January blues are here… do you have them yet? If it helps to pull you out of them, here’s a gentle reminder that you have roughly 3.5 months to file your 2025 personal tax returns. Awesome, eh?
You can start getting all your receipts and information together in a safe spot and get ready to give them to your tax preparer. Or, if you’re a do-it-yourselfer, you can starting marking your calendar for the day you can buy the 2025 version of your tax software. It’s all exciting stuff.
Roughly one-third of the Canadians pay a professional to prepare their taxes, but more than 60 per cent of returns
are filed by someone other than the taxpayer, including paid preparers, volunteers or family members, according to Canada Revenue Agency data. In other words, a majority don’t file their own return even if they don’t always pay for help.
The overlying message here is that preparing your tax return is not easy, even though it should be. The tiny Baltic country Estonia provides a good model for this. There are many credible reports that it takes the average Estonian three to five minutes to complete and file their tax returns. Wouldn’t that be a great goal to move towards in Canada?
Despite years of signaling that the government wants to introduce automatic tax filing for simple tax filers and lots of fanfare about it in the 2025 budget, I’ll believe it when I see it. Despite opposition from some groups, fully automatic tax filing for those with simple tax affairs should be available. But the system needs to provide for a true version of it, not one that waits for the consent of affected taxpayers.
Click the button below to read more about the 5 ways to make tax filing season easier for Canadians and their advisors