K. van Delden & Associates Ltd
200 17564 56A Ave V3S 1G3 Surrey, BC, Canada

For some reason the court takes a dim view of not filing your income taxes. Go figure.

Government ineptness is going to cost a few people: According to the government, self employed people would be able to claim CERB if they had at least $5,000 in income for 2019 or 12 months prior to the date of their application. Now people are getting letters from the government to pay back the $14,000 received before December 31, to avoid interest. If you do not pay it back by the end of the year, it becomes taxable for 2020. When you pay it back in 2021, the income cla...imed in 2020 is reversed in 2021, thereby complicating your 2021 tax return. Of course, you could actually get to keep it if you made additional income from January 1 to March 15, 2020, and the net income was more than $5,000 or combined with 9.5 months in 2019 was higher than $5,000. The key is self-employment income of at least $5,000 compared to net income of $5,000. In the opinion of the government, people should have known it meant net income. All I can say is...wow....and shake my head. See more

Make use of your local accountant. Mr. Flores of Edmonton played his own accountant and bank manager by using a payday loan company to cash cheques from clients and money orders to pay subcontractors. He underreported taxable business income by $573,563 for three years and failed to report/remit $44,474 in GST. He was caught and charged with one count of tax evasion, given a 12-month conditional sentence and fined $157,403. People try to outsmart CRA all the time. Some... people probably get away with it, but are always looking over their shoulder. Most, who think they are quite bright, are actually pretty dumb. From April 2019 to March 2020, there were 32 convictions and 13 taxpayers were sent to jail for a total of 18.5 years. Total evasion of tax was $7,427,090. Moral of the story: Use the available legal tax strategies and report what you earn. Generally saves a lot of trouble at the end of the day and lets you sleep peacefully at night. See more

The principal residence exemption is not to be trifled with as per this article. By law you must report the sale of your principal residence and the CRA does keep track and are looking to tax the sale of your home as business income. Be aware.

We are not all in this together is correct. Who are getting hurt the most? Small businesses are failing. Workers, especially lower income workers, are going to be unemployed long term. How long does the government want to continue to operate in fear? A good article.