taxdetective-Sandusky-Register

Today I received an email that told me I wasn't home at 9:46 am to receive a parcel.  It was so convincing, that I clicked on the print this receipt to take to collect your parcel. This was inspite of the fact that I was indeed home at that time, and would have heard the door because the dog would have barked.

Both Malwarebytes and my firewall, responded immediatley, but I still got the .exe file.  Malwarebytes kept coming up telling me it was trying to activate this .exe. I called my computer guy, he told me how to do a system restore and I'm in the midst of scanning everything to make sure it's gone with both software.
Don't be fooled..  Apparently Canada Post has been receiving a steady stream of phone calls on this scam today.

Postscript: sorry couldn't post your response anonymous as there was an error when I tried to post it.
The important thing about this post was it talked about how to fix this problem, and yes I was not as smart as I should have been because I did click, not once but twice.  For the anonymous responder who figured I never should have clicked because I should have known better, the email was very believable and Canada Post does have my email and address connected, because I recently signed up for a business account to access their business rate plan. So it was perfectly reasonable that Canada Post would be emailing me.  My tech guy and Canada Post both said that many people were affected by this virus and weren't as lucky as I was to catch it right away.

I had a link to the Memorandum of Agreement between the Feds and BC... it was to the contract between the Feds and BC about how the HST deal was to be structured.  I am pretty sure I read that the 1.6 Million signing bonus term was that we had to keep the HST in place for at least 2 years, but I can't remember if that was the right term or not.

If someone has time can they search and find a link to the July 23, 2009 Memorandum of Agreement called the "Comprehensive Integrated Tax Co-ordination AGreement" CITCA for short that sets out the terms conditions and instalment payment dates between Canada and BC?  There's a similar CITCA between Canada and Ontario. Try www.canlii.org first.

I"m pretty sure the province pulled the link because it would blow holes in their threat of how much rescinding the HST will cost.

More pensioners are being required to pay their own premiums for extended health and dental plans.  There's no box on the T4A for reporting these premiums.
Back in 2005, I lobbied for a Box on the T4 to report these premiums because they are medical expense, and often, the premiums plus the amount that isn't paid by the plans is enough to make a claim for medical expenses on your tax return.

I just noticed that since 2009, Sun Life premiums are taken from Public Works and Gov't Serivces Canada, Public Service Pension cheques, and there's no Box 85 on a T4A, which is how pensions are reported.  Recently, I noticed that teachers in BC will be paying premiums for their health and dental plans on retirement. 

Don't you think that T4A's should include a report just like T4's and that both should be mandatory reporting?  After all union dues deductions are mandatory reporting, what's with this lack of mandatory reporting when it's your hard earned dollars going to third parties!

Please write to the Federal Minister of Finance in Ottawa to support my request for Box 85 on the T4 to be extended to include a Box 85 on the T4A, and for Box 85 to be mandatory reporting by employers and pension plans for both T4's and T4A's! 

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My ten tips for financial health

1. Evaluate your spending habits for a month, list all of your regular commitments or contracts that are annual or monthly, your debt service payments, interest rates on debts and essentials like groceries and gas or medical. How much is left over and who is entitled to spend the remainder? Is it split 50/50 or 80/20 between you and your spouse or partner? Is that fair?    This is where my book comes in handy
2. Know what you have, how many accounts, what assets you own, what debts you owe, what you insure and what's valuable, and where it's stored, check your will, power of attorney and representation agreements are current, review beneficiaries on insurance, RSP or RIF contracts ....             This is where my book comes in handy
3. Evaluate financial contracts to determine if they are necessary and cancel any that are not (cell phone, internet, phone, cable, debt, mortgage, credit, bank & investment accounts, organic grocery delivery, lawn, building, sprinkler, spa or pool maintenance, gym memberships, insurance plans)
4. Develop a plan to manage your paperwork, sort out your paperwork into account numbers, one account or asset per file. You'll find that most of your paper is from an account or asset, whether it's a bank, credit card, investment, vehicle, house, pension plan, utility provider or cell phone.
5. Create a budget and a plan to live within that budget. Sort your cash out into five major categories with sub-categories. The five major categories are annual, monthly, essential, debt service and remainder. 

1. Refinance debt at a lower rate of interest, investigate lines of credit with credit cards attached instead of credit cards
2. Make a long term plan (cash flow till you die requires date of death prediction)
3. Prepare some 'what-if' I scenarios, like what if we sold the house and rented, experienced a decline in health , what if we cashed in the GIC's and paid off the credit cards?
4. Evaluate what you are invested in, and if it's not growing, get out,consider debt repayment versus savings in tax deferred accounts and definitely consider TFSA's
5. Shift your attitude about consumption of everything from water, your footprint on the earth, your food and other consumables from sources within 100 miles, living even more green and within your means

Bookkeeping isn't quick and it isn't simple.  '

Nor can you expect to learn how to use software even though it's advertised as being quick or simple. 

If you aren't a farmer, fisherman or commission sales person, you're required to do accrual accounting. 

Not only that but you're expected to keep a full set of records, not just the receipts, and not just the payment records, but both the receipts and the payment records. In fact, if you don't pay a bill, you are required to add back the expense if it isn't paid within 2 years.  That's because S. 78 of the Income Tax Act requires an add back if you don't pay for something.  How would you protect yourself, proving you paid for something?  Double entry, accrual bookkeeping is top of the list.  By recording the purchase on the date the purchase, and the payment on the date of the payment, you're providing an audit trail to prove you paid for your purchases.
Accrual accounting is also necessary to keep track of what you sell and how people paid you to determine that you were paid.

If you're a business owner, you expect to access your bank balance, adjusted for what's not yet cleared the bank as well as what's owed to you (Accounts Receivable by Customer) and what you owe (Accounts Payable by vendor).  Then, it's important to pay employees based on their time worked of course...

All of that requires full accrual accounting every day and not just an adjustment by the accountant at year end.

I've put together a series of videos talking about how to do all of that using QuickBooks. 

If you are an accountant who currently hates using QuickBooks software but your clients are leaning towards using QuickBooks software because Intuit has targeted them and sold them on the value of using the software, it's time to take a fresh look.

...Or the operations manager has seen the kind of reporting that can be accomplished by using the Items in QuickBooks software, and is pushing for you, the business owner and the bookkeeper to make the switch, this series of videos could be for you. 

Why would I bring that up as a reason?  I've had a number of calls this past year from operations managers begging me to figure out how they could persuade their owner/managers and bookkeepers to make the switch.  They all tell me they are tired of creating spreadsheets separate from the company record keeping process in order to figure out how to make business decisions that their books and records should be able to provide.

Qtrade appears to have provided T5 slips for interest for the second fiscal period of an interest bearing investment when both first and second period were paid at the end of year 2.

If I didn't reconcile that interest income received agrees to the T-slips,wouldn't have caught this one.

They are switching to accrual method, but leaving their investors hanging for unreported income in  the proceess.  You would think they would have sent a notice with the T-slip, but maybe they did and my client chose to shred it.

If investments are held for more than a fiscal year, you are supposed to report the income each year.  Of course that means the clients have to tell you what they own.

Hah!  If you used my system of tracking everyone's investments in Quicken, you'd know what they hold and be able to accrue for longer term investment income annually.