Pre-Certified Studio Tax 2015 | Page 2 | Income tax filing | Discussion forum

The auto-fill program that the CRA officially rolled out today draws information already on file related to T3, T4 and T5 slips, RRSPs, amounts owing under the Home Buyers’ and Lifelong Learning Plans, non-capital losses carried forward from prior years, capital gains and losses in other years, federal and provincial tuition, education and textbook carryover amounts, installment payments and more, to automatically complete all the appropriate fields, without the need of a third party. So why can't the CRA allow filers to deal directly with them? Because accountants, tax preparation companies and their lawyers are fighting hard not to let it happen. Too bad. It would be cheaper for tax payers and certainly safer.

I haven't tried splitting T5s from joint accounts using Studio Tax so don't know. Have you tried running the calculation, i.e. preview your return and then preview your spouse's return? Perhaps the carryover does not happen until you 'save' the data? Just a thought.

Slightly off-topic comment, but I rarely have ever had anything 50/50 joint with spouse. Usually either she, or I, have made disproportionate contributions to such accounts, and/or different timing, and thus splits are something other than 50/50.

I believe AltaRed is correct, and that just because an account is called joint does not allow you to split the interest on tax returns. The interest should be split and attributed proportionately to the contributor. Otherwise, it is tax evasion.

I agree the govts (fed and prov) should offer direct tax preparation on-line.

I also think the whole system is needlessly complex and employs a whole body of intelligent people for no good purpose, creating nothing of value.

Whether it makes a difference in this year's tax returns for tax payable is irrelevant. The issue is Attribution of Income and there are strict rules in the ITA about that. Being cavalier about 'casual splitting' of investment income is fraught with potential consequences IF CRA starts asking for the paperwork.

You say... who tracks who, husband or wife, invested in a GIC to report interest? I reckon the bulk of taxpayers who know about Attribution of Income do so. I have done so for decades and kept the paperwork. That said, there are no doubt a lot of married taxpayers who are ignorant of the law and split interest income in particular 50/50. While I suspect CRA knows a lot of people do this knowingly, or unknowingly, they likely have bigger fish to fry most of the time and choose to ignore.....for now. Do you really want to be offside with the law?

kanaka said

I have always had higher income than my wife and have always done 50-50. This year I had 2 specific T5s that only had my name and they were recipient type 1. I used Turbo Tax and the split automatically moves 50% to my wife return and this did not happen using studio tax and yes I ran the income spitting thing at the end and it worked for splitting only and has nothing do with T5s. We are both 66 so you might be thinking about another version of income splitting??? The 2 T5s in question I did the split on turbo tax and then tried to find out if I was allowed to do so. Not an easy find....so I made those 2 at 100% for me and ran income splitting and it came out to pay 1 cent less so matter how you slice or dice splitting it all works out the same rather than possibly being picked up for splitting a T5 I was not allowed to I took the full brunt and the other income splitting turned out only once cent different. So it is as broad as its long.

I still don't have a match of numbers from turbo tax to studio tax line to line so will assume the T5 splitting does not work as slick as turbo tax and will do a dual entry in studio tax. If those are the few differences...no problem. I was just hoping someone could actually confirm my thoughts.

I will let you know tomorrow.

So Studio Tax has replied with in 24 hours. Very nice!!

My Question was:
I assume you have to do dual entry for any T5 splits and the split does NOT move to the spouses return forms?

Response:
Yes for the Mac version. The Windows version has a feature that will let you save on retyping by pressing a copy button.