In recognition that the new reporting requirements for bare trusts have had an unintended impact on Canadians, the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) will not require bare trusts to file a T3 Income Tax and Information Return (T3 return), including Schedule 15 (Beneficial Ownership Information of a Trust), for the 2023 tax year, unless the CRA makes a direct request for these filings.
Over the coming months, the CRA will work with the Department of Finance to further clarify its guidance on this filing requirement. The CRA will communicate with Canadians as further information becomes available.
omg - are you kidding me… i waited until this week to work on all bare trusts.
i anticipated an announcement but not this late.
i have prepared lots of returns this week and was sending all signing and invoices today.
so i wasted a week doing this and not t1’s…
Unbelievable! In true CRA fashion, waiting until the 11th hour after wasting so much of Canadians valuable time and money. I am not at all surprised by this announcement but glad someone finally came to their senses.
Totally agree with the huge time waster, especially explaining this to all my clients. The information on Bare Trusts in the Pre-Season Tax Letter sent to my clients went over their heads. None of my clients understood what Bare Trusts were from that description, so they all dismissed it as being irrelevant information not applicable to them. They all understood once we had the verbal communication about it.
It’s put me way behind on my work this year. Now I’m working overtime to play catchup. Luckily, I too have put off formally filing any T3’s waiting to see if CRA suddenly changes direction. I was about to start filing them this afternoon or tomorrow, so the announcement came just on time for me.
Are you kidding me? A part of me is relieved as this was a ridiculous filing however what happens now to those poor individuals that did the right thing, filed their T3 returns and paid their accounting fees. Will the CRA be reimbursing those clients?
Just spent the past 2 1/2 weeks handholding and educating clients and now they cancel the filing requirement. So damn frustrating!!! Now it will be another battle to try and bill even for a portion of the time we spent on preparing the requisite documents!
Awesome, but but as others have said, I scared a whole lot of people for nothing. And I still would like to know whether we have to file for 2024 and going forward. Will they wait announcing that until tax season Apr/25 ???
Was just on a call with CRA trust officer and she didn’t even know it was canceled and couldn’t tell us if we still need to set up the trust account even if it doesn’t have to be filed LOL.
I would assume you would not be required to obtain a trust account number if there is no filing required. If they exempt certain relationships next year obtaining the number would have been a waste.
I have lost faith in the Dept of Finance and our government to come up with “reasonable” ways of dealing with their priorities. They have cost accountants immeasurable hours chasing information for something we all knew was a paper chase. Judging from how their last minute rules were changed for the UHT (twice), we should have all known this would suffer the same fate.
These trust rules are the gov’t’s answer to the Panama Papers. The ultra-wealthy, who were the subject of that scandal, are not suffering. Neither are the big firms that put together schemes to defraud the government of tax dollars. The average person pays the price so the government can say they have “addressed the problem”. In reality, not much has changed except that I have boxes of T1’s that still must be reviewed.
Same here and I’m having to explain to all the clients not involved why we are so damn far behind. I need a drink. I don’t drink but I’m willing to make an exception today.
I have clients coming in today and Tuesday to finalize/sign these T3 returns. What do we tell them? “I’m billing you to prepare something you don’t need to file and may not ever have to file since the government has changed their mind”. What a freaking mess.
I am all in favour of a general accountants strike that will prevent any more tax returns at all filed this tax season. We would all have to be united though…