Income trust foreign takeovers may be a good thing

There’s been a lot of activity lately on the income trust front. Foreign firms are making bids left and right to acquire the Canadian entities, in the wake of the 31.5% trust tax introduced by the Conservative government. Jack Mintz, a professor at Rotman, the business school at the University of Toronto, discusses in aContinue reading “Income trust foreign takeovers may be a good thing”

The case for digitized perm files

Having lugged around three thick files representing the full permanent file for an audit client for the past few weeks, I’ve come to the conclusion that my firm needs to consider digitizing these things. Perm files for accountants consist of client documents that carry forward year to year. For example, engagement letters are good forContinue reading “The case for digitized perm files”

Always have exact change

This struck me as sort of interesting, possibly useful, and probably a little compulsive. One blogger’s way of slowly using change is to carry the optimal number of each denomination of coin in his pocket. Everyone has coins they want to get rid of. I randomly thought of an easy way to carry change andContinue reading “Always have exact change”

Simpler corporate income tax filing requirements

An agreement reached between the Canadian Federal government and the provincial Ontario government will simplify corporate taxes by 2009. The Ontario tax return, known as the CT23, will be amalgamated with the Federal return. Ontario Finance Minister Greg Sorbara had this on the much-lauded move: “Businesses have been asking us to reduce administrative overlap andContinue reading “Simpler corporate income tax filing requirements”

Bank of Canada chief pushes smarter provincial sales tax

David Dodge, the governor of the Bank of Canada and the current architect of our monetary policy, suggested the province of Ontario should revamp the provincial sales tax (PST) to more closely resemble the value-added federal GST in a rare appearance before the Commons industry committee. The suggestion is a solid one, as it wouldContinue reading “Bank of Canada chief pushes smarter provincial sales tax”