A few things that I have come across while preparing T2 returns over the last little while.
5 YearComp S1 (5 Year Comparative for S1)
In the Current Year Column “Total of lines 101 to 296” which is the subtotal between line 296 & 401 does not total lines 101 to 296, even if you check the box at the top of the page that says “Calculate totals”. I find that it only totals the amounts from lines 224 to 296 and misses adding lines 101 to 222 which means in most cases it puts a zero in that box. Oddly enough, it calculates the 4 prior years properly, so the issue exists just with the current year.
CGI - Corporate Group Information (corporate linking)
Perhaps I am not using the corporate linking properly, but there seems to be some data that doesn’t get completed on the CGI Worksheet from the CGI link file. I find myself entering this data manually, even though I feel the software should be able to pull this information automatically. Specifically;
CGI Schedule 23 - Agreement to allocate the Business Limit
The Taxable Income (Box 8) of the Target corporation does not get populated and I find that I must enter this manually.
CGI Schedule 49 - Agreement to allocate the Expenditure Limit
The prior year’s Taxable Income of the target corporation is blank, and I find that I must enter this figure manually. I find this odd, as the software remembers the Taxable Capital (CGI - S23 box 7) from the prior year but is not able to remember the taxable income for the Schedule 49.
ON S511 - Total Assets & Revenue
I find that I must enter the Total Assets (box 400) and the Total Revenue (box 500) for both the Source corporation as well as the target corporation.
@snoplowguy
I took a look at the corp linking issues. I am sorry about the long responses. We will have to improve corporate linking in general and certainly address your concerns. We are bit busy with a quite a few things for a while. We will definitely look at these once things are a bit calmer around here. Thank you for your feedback.
CGI S23 column 8
Just to give some background info on this column 8. I added this new column not too long ago as a way to help with business limit allocation (ie. so one does not over-allocate to an associated corp in excess of its taxable income for the year). In addition, the amount in this column is carried forward to the previous year taxable income column in the S49 section in CGI.
The way this is meant to work is that when corporate linking is active, TaxCycle is supposed to pick up the taxable income from each source file (T2 jacket) and share it across all files. When I tried the linking with 3 files, I am finding that the column 8 value for only 2 of the 3 corps are shared but there is always 1 row that is blank even though it should have an amount. I will log this bug for us to look at.
CGI S49 prior year taxable income
The way this is designed, it is meant to be completed in a master “S49” section in CGI then the data would be shared. So, say there are 3 files: Parent Corp, Son Corp, Daughter Corp. To make this work, first fill out, S49 section of CGI in only one of the files. Let’s say that file is “Parent Corp”. Then, from Parent Corp file, update the corp linking file. When you import the updated corp linking file into Son Corp and Daughter Corp, S49 section of CGI in Son and Daughter Corps will be automatically updated. Ideally, we should pick up the prior year taxable income from each source file (ie. from prior year taxable income field in 5 year comparison or some other field in each source file) and be able to automatically share it across. My thought was that I didn’t want to force preparers to complete 5 year comp if they didn’t want to (ie. a new accountant who did not have previous accountant’s T2 soft copy of the file to carryforward to TaxCycle thus did not want to manually enter 5 year comp). I will look at making this better.
ON S511 - Total Assets & Revenue
This is very similar to S49 CGI corp linking method. You complete the S511 section in CGI in one of the files. When you update the CGI linking file and import to each source file, S511 section in CGI will update. Again, we could have gone to each source file’s S125 and S100 to obtain assets and revenue data but the notes at the bottom of S511 may suggest that the total assets and revenue might be different from those in S125 and S100…though I think in most cases, this would be the same (?)
Thanks Steven.
No rush on any of this… I realize T1 season is just about to break wide open.
… and even if later you feel it is safer not to change anything with the CGI, that is fine too.
I just had a list of small things that I have encountered and though it worth mentioning.
I don’t to all that many Associated corps where Corporate Linking is necessary, and I have a little check list of values that I must manually complete in the CGI form, and values that automatically get completed.
