Tuesday, March 25, 2008

Claiming Expenses By tax Return

If you're renting an apartment, you probably know that a portion of your apartment rent can be deducted from your taxes. However, you might not know that you can also deduct certain moving expenses from your next tax return, including transportation, packing and storage costs.

You Can Deduct Moving Expenses If ...

To be able to claim moving expenses from your taxes, your move has to fit in one of the following categories:

· You moved to your new home or new apartment to start a job or a business, or to attend full-time post-secondary courses at a university, college or other educational institution.

· Your new place of residence is at least 40 kilometres closer to your workplace or school than your previous home.

· You moved from one place in Canada to another place in Canada.

Eligible Moving Expenses:

The Canada Revenue Agency allows you to deduct reasonable amounts that you paid for moving yourself, your family and your household effects, including:

· Transportation costs associated with moving from your old residence to your new one (e.g., gas, meals, and accommodation).

· Transportation and storage costs for your household effects (e.g., packing, hauling, storage and insurance).

· The cost of revising your legal documents and driver's license to reflect the address change,

· The costs associated with disconnecting and switching over your utility hookups (e.g., cable, Internet, phone, hydro and gas).

· A maximum of 15 days' living expenses near new or old residence (e.g., hotels and meals).

· The cost of cancelling your old lease.

· The cost of selling your old residence (including advertising, notary or legal fees, real estate commissions and mortgage penalties).

· If applicable, the costs associated with maintaining heat and power in a vacant old residence.

Expenses That Are Not Deductible:

Although the list above covers many of the costs associated with moving to a new apartment, there are many expenses that are not deductible (including some that are similar in nature to those that can be claimed). These include:

· A loss on the sale of your previous home.

· Expenses for work done to make your previous home more saleable.

· Transportation expenses for house-hunting trips before your move.

· Mail-forwarding costs.

· Expenses to replace items such as drapes, carpets and toolsheds.

Be sure to keep all of your receipts and documents supporting your claims - even if it's not necessary to send them with your tax return, the CRA may want to see them at a later date.

Please keep in mind that the information presented in this article is very general and is subject to change, as tax laws are modified on a frequent basis. For specific details about which moving expenses you can claim, the maximum amount you can claim and the forms you will need to make your claim, be sure to check out the Canada Revenue Agency's website or meet with a professional accountant.

On Time Tax Returns And Payment

Regular and on time payment of tax return is every citizen's duty. Any sort of avoidance or tax mitigation by a person is considered as an offense for which he may be punished. Therefore, it is highly advisable that one should not neglect his due tax return payments to the government. However, it is also a fact that tax payment is an extremely grueling task. And it gets all the more complicated with the companies and huge business organizations to sum up their entire official data as well as the financial expenditure of the year and finally the creation of the complete report. Most of the companies recruit a special staff or a group of accountants to handle and manage their tax returns in the most appropriate manner. But this in turn, is an expensive way to deal your tax returns as these accountants generally demand high salary along with the economic convenience of several allowances such as house, travel and medical. An easy solution to this problem is outsourcing. Yes, once again the very beneficial advent of the concept of outsourcing has provided an easy assistance of tax return outsourcing to the organizations.

Tax return outsourcing has secured a specific position in the market. More and more companies are seeking assistance from these tax return outsourcing companies so that they can reduce their burden of taxing tax payments to a certain extent. These outsourcing firms are well recruited with all certified accountants, who have complete information on the tax laws and their intelligent use. They are highly skilled in managing the entire procedure with better accuracy and guide their clients in solving all the problems related to tax returns. These accountants have years of expertise and can thoroughly guide you on issues regarding the perfect management of your financial year. Not only this, they can also guide you on various aspects of saving your tax under legal rules and regulations. They let you file your returns within the time limit, so that you face no possibility of raid or extra payment on delayed submission. Every step that is in some sense related to the tax payment scheme will be performed by these CPAs right from the issue of filing data, creating tack sheets to the provisions of tax reduction and other required consultation.

However, while selecting your tax return outsourcing company, it is recommended to make some prior inquiries about the outsourcing company. Tax return is a matter where the company may need to share a lot of confidential data and information. Make sure that your provided information should not get misused or encrypted by any other source. On the other hand, even the service providers take several precautionary measures such as security softwares, firewalls and other so that no data can be hacked.

Through this help of tax return outsourcing, many companies have declared their augmentation in efficiency and quality management. It is described as the most popular method to fight against the terror of the taxing tax returns. With Internet and online sharing the process has become all the more simplified and convenient for both the client and the outsourcing company.