Background:

Alessandra Leggio is the forensic accounting partner at Grewal Guyatt LLP in Toronto, Canada. She started her career as a forensic accountant over ten years ago at EY in the Miami, Florida office and transferred to EY in Toronto prior to joining GG.

 

You often hear cautionary tales of how money can bring out the worst in people. Whether it’s assets secretly being funneled from a business by a partner, shareholder, or employee, a child or trustee that misappropriated funds from an estate, or even a spouse that hid their income or assets, these stories are far from fiction.

If you ever find yourself in a similar situation, what should you do? The first step is to call a lawyer and consider involving the expertise of a forensic accountant.

The 2023 Federal Budget (the “Budget”) was delivered on March 28, 2023, and the 2023 Ontario Budget was announced on March 23, 2023. This article provides our summary of some of the tax measures proposed in the two recently announced budgets. Stay tuned for future articles with a more in-depth analysis of some of the proposed changes.

Personal tax season has arrived, and it is time to get ready to file your 2022 tax return! To help better prepare for your personal tax filing, we have created a checklist that will assist you in gathering all necessary information. Please refer to our previous article, titled “2022 Personal Income Tax Filing Reminder and Questionnaire” (click here).

In this article, we would like to remind you of the requirements related to your filing obligations and help you understand some of the new tax changes for 2022.

One of the best tools to save for retirement is a Register Retirement Savings Plan (“RRSP”). An RRSP is a special type of registered investment and savings account that provides opportunities to reduce your taxes in the year of contribution and defer income taxes on the income earned within the account.

As a reminder, the RRSP contribution deadline for 2022 is March 1, 2023. This means you still have an opportunity to review your current financial situation and determine if it is beneficial to make an additional contribution and have it apply to your 2022 taxes.

Grewal Guyatt LLP would like to take this opportunity to thank you for your continued business as we look forward to working with you for another year.  Should you have questions, any of our Partners would be more than happy to meet or discuss them with you.

 

We would like to kindly remind you that the personal tax filing deadline for the 2022 taxation year is April 30, 2023.  To facilitate the timely completion and filing of income tax return(s) for you and/or your family, we ask that you provide all the necessary documentation and information by March 31, 2023.

The Underused Housing Tax (“UHT”) came into effect on January 1, 2022. If you are not a Canadian citizen or permanent resident and own a vacant or “underused” house in Canada, you may be subject to the UHT. Additionally, if you are a Canadian citizen or permanent resident, but own a residential property in Canada through a corporation, partnership, or trust, you may be subject to the filing requirements under the UHT. This article will discuss the UHT, the tax implications, exemptions available, and the filing obligations.

According to the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners (ACFE), 51% of organizations have uncovered more fraud since the beginning of the pandemic, and 71% expect the level of fraud impacting their organizations to increase over the next year.¹ Fraud could significantly impact the bottom-line of any organization if it is not identified in a timely manner. The good news is that organizations can implement a whistleblower channel, which could reduce their risk of fraud.