Today just happens to mark the coming together of a pair of things that stress people out – voting in an election and having to file their income taxes.
It wasn’t supposed to work this way, save for a screw up by officials a couple of weeks ago from the Canada Revenue Agency.
If you haven’t heard – and didn’t file yet – you’ll be pleased to know the deadline was extended until today by the federal minister in charge after the CRA sent an email to numerous accounting companies reminding them that the deadline for tax filers was May 5.
Oops! Someone forgot to change the date back to the usual Apr. 30, since last year the CRA had to move the date due to complications with tax software made them unable to accept online tax filings for several days.
While the new deadline might have saved some anxious Canadians last week, for the majority of the public having to do their taxes can be a daunting, exhausting and frustrating task – especially if you can’t afford someone to do it for you or the computer software and end up having to do it yourself on paper.
And that’s where the latest report on Canada’s tax system comes in, which was released last week by the B.C.-based Fraser Institute think tank that showed the system has become so complex that most Canadians are missing out on getting back hundreds of dollars.
The study suggests those that don’t get professional help to file their taxes will not achieve the full benefits of the 120 tax credits that they may be eligible for.
And even those that use computerized tax filing software may be missing out on credits, the study stated, as the software can only prompt the person inputting the numbers if the person knows what credits they can claim.
Now the Fraser Institute had a simple solution – two tax brackets with the split at about $138,000 – but there has to be a better suggestion than that.
Why can’t the federal government just not take as much tax – or none at all – off people’s paycheques that are under a certain income level?
Perhaps have the CRA come up with free tax software that the average Canadian could use, with the agency providing online help?
There’s likely more suggestions out there that would take that stress away.
However, its more likely that those running the ship will make the situation worse and more complex as they attempt to ‘fix’ it.
