Canadian Capitalist

A Canadian Personal Finance Weblog

Entries Tagged as 'Taxes'

Dividend Taxes are Going up

February 27th, 2008 · 15 Comments

Budget 2008 does have a sting buried deep in the document and barely mentioned in the mainstream media. In page 290, under the innocuous title of Dividend Tax Credit, the budget states:
The 2007 Economic Statement reduced the general corporate income tax rate to 15 per cent by 2012 and stated that consideration would be given [...]

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Tags: Investing · Taxes

Quick Review: GenuTax 2007

February 4th, 2008 · 9 Comments

One of the reasons that I liked StudioTax is that it allowed entering tax information directly into the forms. Admittedly, not everyone is a fan of the direct entry method. A lot of people prefer the interview method where the software asks relevant questions and generates the tax return based on the answers. If you [...]

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Tags: Software · Taxes

Intuit’s Response on QuickTax

January 30th, 2008 · 56 Comments

In response to an earlier post, the QuickTax product manager sent the following email, with permission to post on the blog. Please note that he clarifies that all versions of QuickTax include all the forms to address any tax scenario but the tools and optimizers are specific to the product tiers.
One of the reasons QuickTax [...]

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Tags: Software · Taxes

Superficial loss rules regarding RRSPs

January 27th, 2008 · 12 Comments

Tax rules are confusing at the best of times but to make matters worse, they are changed, updated and reinterpreted all the time. Take for example, my recent investigation into superficial loss rules regarding RRSPs. Last year, I purchased some foreign ETFs such as VEA and VTI in a taxable account. With the New Year [...]

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Tags: Investing · Taxes

Review: StudioTax 2007

January 16th, 2008 · 104 Comments

On the recommendation of a reader, I downloaded StudioTax for a test drive. To be quite honest, I didn’t have high expectations - I thought that the software would be functional and accurate but clunky - but I was pleasantly surprised at the quality and ease-of-use of the product. StudioTax is free to download (the [...]

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Tags: Software · Taxes

Quick Review: UFile 2007

January 6th, 2008 · 113 Comments

Since QuickTax Standard reduced the number of returns to two this year, I decided to try out UFile for filing our 2007 tax returns instead. UFile is available for download from the vendor’s website for $29.99 but you can also pick it up at Future Shop or Best Buy for $19.99. I picked up a [...]

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Tags: Software · Taxes

QuickTax Disappoints

December 18th, 2007 · 149 Comments

Let’s face it: tax software is a commodity and a program from one vendor can easily be substituted with another if you are willing to put up with a little bit of a learning curve. The realities of the marketplace seem to have escaped the folks at Intuit, the makers of the biggest-selling tax preparation [...]

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Tags: Software · Taxes

Tax Treatment of ESPP Benefits

September 26th, 2007 · 17 Comments

The tax on Employee Stock Purchase Plans (ESPP) has two components: the difference between the offering price and the fair market value (FMV) of the stock is treated as employment income and the difference between the FMV and the selling price is treated as capital gains or losses.
For example, let’s say that shares in your [...]

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Tags: Taxes

QuickTax Rebate

December 26th, 2006 · 14 Comments

Intuit Canada, maker of the best-selling QuickTax software package, has stopped offering TaxWiz for download. Instead, for a limited time until January 17, 2007, Intuit is offering QuickTax Standard for download for $29.99, which is $10 less than the sticker price. Also, if you are a regular user of Norton AntiVirus software (retail price $49.99), [...]

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Tags: Taxes

Tax Cuts and Other Topics

November 21st, 2006 · 12 Comments

Finance Minister Jim Flaherty will present the fiscal update to Parliament on Thursday and there is intense speculation about what tax cuts are planned in the next and future budgets. Mr. Flaherty has hinted that he is considering income splitting for couples, cuts to the capital gains tax and income tax and a further 1% [...]

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Tags: Taxes