News

It’s getting to be a nasty habit of the Federal Government: dropping major tax legislation on us just as everyone is leaving for the holidays. It happened last July – and again now (December 13^th 2017).

What was so urgent that needed releasing ? The “TOSI” (tax on split income) rules that our Government considers an important priority.  They say that these changes will raise an additional $200 million in tax.  In view of the fact that the annual deficit is currently projected at almost $18 billion, we can think of some other things that could perhaps use some attention, but never mind.

Please note: it’s important that we emphasize up front that salaries and wages (reported on a T4 slip) are not subject to these new provisions – the Government appears to be satisfied that the long-established principle that such earnings must be reasonable in the circumstances already prevents taxpayers from paying their spouses $100K for doing the banking, and other shenanigans.

These tax changes are really the tax world’s equivalent of an earthquake. Out of the blue, we now have the concept of “earning a dividend”, rather like a job.   For instance, to avoid TOSI individuals have to be actively engaged on a regular, continuous and substantial basis.  That’s a provable average of at least 20 hours per week, according to CRA.

In addition, the Department of Finance clearly has a “hate” on for service businesses, as opposed, for example, to a seller of goods. “Professional corporations” and businesses basically dedicated to the provision of services are intended to be caught by these rules.  That’s awfully discriminatory for what are probably the majority of businesses in this country.

Such an approach has never been attempted on such a scale, and, assuming this recent Bill is passed in its current state, it seems to us to be almost certain to be challenged in Court, with one possibility being the eventual overturn of the whole thing. While that might be pleasant to contemplate, the problem is that such a Court decision, if it ever did happen, would be years away, leaving taxpayers floundering on their own, in an ocean of uncertainty.

But wait: maybe that should be our strategy: clog the Courts with tens of thousands of tax appeals ?  Hold that thought.

TOSI (Tax on Split Income)

TOSI currently applies to dividends, capital gains, and other “income splitting” structures received by minor children (under age 18). As TOSI is now being re-written, it will (as of January 1, 2018) now apply to recipients of certain types of income by persons of ALL ages (except at age 65 – more comments on that to follow).

Excepted are capital gains arising on the sale of farm property, gains realized on “qualified small business corporation (QSBC)” shares, gains that might otherwise arise as a consequence of marriage breakdown, or the deemed disposition arising on death. Thank goodness – those events are serious enough, all by themselves !

The QSBC exception will be most valuable to business owners who can qualify, since it is a means of multiplying the exemption across all family members, regardless of age. A family of 2 adults and 3 children, for example, could qualify for tax exemption on a total of $4.2 million in gains – which is nothing to be sneezed at.

A great relief to our older clients will be that dividends paid won’t be subject to TOSI if the active shareholder is 65 or older (while the spouse receiving the dividend could be younger than that). That fits well with the notion that holding company accumulations are, in many or most situations, intended to provide a retirement income to business owners.  This rule is apparently designed to dovetail with the ‘pension splitting’ rules that are already permitted by law.

The TOSI serves to apply the top marginal rate of tax applicable to ‘ineligible’ dividends (43.7% in B.C., in 2018, for example) to the affected income. Since that’s ridiculous, a TOSI is obviously to be avoided, at all costs.

Dividends will, for the first time, be subject to a “reasonableness test” which, in all honesty, will likely catch almost all of our clients.   Thus the major impact of this change will be to concentrate income in the hands of the principal income-earner.   That’s guaranteed to cost those who have been using income splitting strategies in the past a lot more tax, starting in 2018.

The government is, in fact, so dedicated to the idea of eliminating income splitting benefits for “professionals” (doctors, lawyers, accountants, and a host of others) that it has even gone beyond that, extending the new rules to all businesses who derive their income from services.

Canada has a great many private corporations involved in providing services, and to discriminate against them, versus, say, companies engaged in selling products seems unduly harsh.

Much of the TOSI exclusions centre on something called “business income”, and while the reader might be forgiven for assuming that such a thing would, by now, be well understood – actually, we’re far from it. The Income Tax Act has always taken effort to distinguish “income from property” from “income from business”, and yet the definition of “business” in the Act is “an undertaking of any kind, whatever”. It seems that “undertaking” excludes passive investing, but that’s not a certainty.

The new rules require direct share ownership by any individual seeking to avoid the application of TOSI. So does this basically spell the end of family trusts ?  Stand by for more information on this topic, as many of our clients have profitably utilized family trusts for years.  While many such trusts are getting old, there may be some “housecleaning” needed if the supply of income splitting candidates has dwindled away.  And don’t forget that all trusts have a deemed disposition date on the 21^st anniversary of their creation, which could trigger large and unwanted capital gains.  Usually, prior to that time, trusts are wound up, by way of tax-free distribution of the trust’s capital (most importantly, the shares of the subject corporation). This may motivate a lot of trusts to pack it in – but you must be cautious.  Trusts are likely still the best (and possibly only) way to multiply the capital gains exemptions on the eventual sale of a family QSBC (see other reference herein) – so it’s best to discuss all this with us before doing anything drastic.

Are ‘IPPs’ an answer?

The TOSI rules are certainly intended to restrict the amount of income that can be “split” with a spouse. Most concerns should be alleviated by simply waiting until age 65, but some clients may want to revisit the concept of setting up their own formal pension plans, known as the “individual pension plan (IPP)”.   The reason: it’s possible for the recipient of benefits under an IPP to split up to 50% of that income with his or her spouse, once pension payouts have begun.  Thus, it may be possible to do an “end run” around the new restrictions, using some pre-existing planning possibilities.

One interesting factor in all of this could yet throw a ‘wrench’ into the Government’s plans: the Senate. This non-elected body, which has caused frustration on many past occasions, might ride to our rescue, and refuse passage of this Bill on the basis that these changes are so fundamental to established tax practice, they require a Royal Commission to consider.  The last Royal Commission on taxation was formed in the 1960’s, which led the taxation of capital gains and a huge overhaul of the Income Tax Act at the end of 1971.

It’s also important to note that these TOSI rules are just the opening act – the July 2017 pronouncement included possible new taxes on holding companies and other corporate accumulations of investment capital that some commentators have been calling confiscatory.  And that’s despite the fact these accumulations have been completely legal for decades.  Most of the  time, they merely serve as a form of “do it yourself” pension plan for their owners.   Too bad that those owners have to first earn the money that goes into these plans – unlike the incredibly expensive pensions that members of Parliament enjoy, but that very few Canadians are even aware of: as much as $2 to $3 million, each).

We’ll keep you posted on developments, as they occur !

The Lohn Caulder Team

Lohn Caulder LLP was very proud to support our local non-profit Covenant House Vancouver with their Christmas backpack program. It was a fantastic evening to give back to our community and support our at-risk youth during the holiday season.

In order to best understand where we are at with the 2018 Income Tax Proposals it is helpful to look back and see where we came from. In March 2017, the ramp up to Budget 2017 was riff with rumors that the capital gain inclusion rate was going to go up 50% effectively to 75% and the government was going to shut down the use of Family Trusts.  As it turns out, none of this happened, rather there was only one tax item of any consequence that saw work in progress for professionals being taxed commencing 2018 over a 2 year phase in period (subsequently changed to 5 years).  There was some commentary that a review would be done of the taxation of private corporations and for some this was taken as a positive sign that the government would not proceed using this as an excuse to sweep the exercise under the carpet similar to what they did with their proposals on election reform without any drastic changes to the tax system.  Then on July 18, 2017 the tax community was shocked when in the dead of summer they introduced sweeping income tax changes the like of which have not been seen in 40 years.  This was all to be finalized after only 75 days of “consultations”.

These proposed changes could be bundled in three categories:

• Capital Gain
  
• Income Splitting
• Passive Income

The changes amounted to major tax reform which normally would be the subject of a Royal Commission and indeed the magnitude of the changes have not been seen since 1972.

After the government received over 20,000 submissions and a daily beating by the press, even by those newspapers that normally support the Liberal government, during the week of October 16^th daily announcements came out of the Department of Finance which revamped the original proposals or abandoned them.

The proposals with respect to capital gains, life time capital gain exemption, succession planning, double taxation of estates and inter-generational transfers were all dropped. With respect to passive income a “bone” was offered that it would not impact the first $50,000 of annual passive income and there would be more details and implementation of the passive investment proposals in Budget 2018.  With regards to income sprinkling or as we call it, “income splitting”, the government continued to push ahead and suggest that there would be a “reasonableness test” that would target these recipients of dividends and other income at what effectively would be a 50% tax rate and without the benefit of tax credits and deductions.

The government is now pressed to write legislation and have it introduced before the end of the year on income splitting or a “tax on split income” (TOSI). Discussions with the Department of Finance suggests that the draft legislation should be coming before the end of the year, but then the Senate has become more independent and in order to become law the Senate would have to pass the legislation and have been pushing back.  Officials from the Department of Finance suggested to us that the legislation will be much simpler than what is currently being proposed and will provide for exemptions.  What this actually means we will have to wait and see.  The existing proposals would result in many years of litigation in tax court to be able to interpret and apply the provisions.  It is obvious that the government has “bitten off more than they can chew” and the passive income rules now to be introduced in Budget 2018 we don’t think will come to pass or will be changed significantly.  The Department of Finance officials have suggested that they are not going to be applicable to holding companies and investment companies, and really only meant to be applicable to the after tax income of active business corporations.  What is this supposed to mean?

At this point it appears that the tax on split income (TOSI) proposals will have some application. Accordingly, it may well be that 2017 is the last year that dividends could be paid to adult children and spouses without raising the angst of Canada Taxation.  We are advised that where possible you use this window before 2018 to consider “topping-up” any income to family members accordingly.

Please do not hesitate to contact us to discuss how the new proposals can impact your corporation and family taxes.

The staff at Lohn Caulder LLP are proud to congratulate Rebecca Lung on passing the Common Final Examination.  We look forward to your long career as a Chartered Professional Accountant.

On July 18, 2017, the Federal Government introduced some proposals and draft legislation which perhaps they’d hoped would be overlooked while Canadians enjoy their summer holidays.

But we’ve noticed.

This proposal announced a 3-prong attack on entrepreneurs – specifically: 

1. the ability of a business owner to split his or her income across members of the household is to be ended, as of 2018, via a broad expansion of the “tax on split income (TOSI)” rules
2. the investment of the tax difference inside a private corporation is to be reviewed, with the intent of taxing away the advantages of the small business deduction; and
3. the elimination of the possibility that a business owner might seek to extract funds from his or her corporation at capital gains tax rates, rather than as dividends.

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Welcome to the 2017 Personal Tax Filing Season!

It’s time again to file your personal tax returns. The deadline keeps changing – this year, those returns must be filed with the Canada Revenue Agency by no later than Monday May 1, 2017.

We’d like to deliver the finished product as quickly and efficiently as possible – and we’re sure that many clients will, as of today, already possess all the information that’s needed (much of the most relevant data may already be on our system – we usually just need the ‘small stuff’, and other items, to tie everything together). So, we’d like to encourage everyone to consider the “practical” deadline as really being early April – there’s little reason for any later than that!

To help us help you, organization is the key! This newsletter contains a few items to help you accomplish your annual filing obligation with as little trouble and expense as possible.

Personal Tax Season Checklists:

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Lohn Caulder LLP is delighted to present our newest CFE graduates – Congratulations Andy Li, Karryn Tam, and Travis Rudy on your incredible accomplishment.  We look forward to your many years as a successful Chartered Professional Accountant.

Lohn Caulder LLP attended the BKR International 2016 Americas Regional Conference in Toronto this past weekend.  Focus was on collaboration, innovation and execution.  #BKRToronto2016