Thursday, March 27, 2008

Pet Peeve: Canada's T3 Income Slip

Yes, boys and girls, it's Tax Time in Canada!

Nothing quickens the pulse of a vigorous Canadian more than this.

Not Spring, not the Stanley Cup play-offs, not even Roll-Up-The-Rim. Yeah, tax-time!

My pet peeve today is Revenue Canada's, excuse me, the Canada Revenue Agency's, T3 form.

Here's the order in which the boxes appear on the actual form: 24 - 25 -26 - 13 - 18 - 10 - 11 -12 -21 -22 -23

Here's the order in which QuickTax processes them: 25 - 18 - 19 - 15 - 11 -13 - 14 -20 - 16

If you click on the QuickTax "Other Boxes" tab, a bonus box appears - box 17 !!!

The first box that appears on my T3 slip is box 24. Where do I put it?

Guess what?

According to QuickTax, "Boxes 24, 26, 10 and 12 do not need to be entered."

On my slip, all of these boxes have values in them. Not needed. Most of the other boxes have nothing.

Then why do we have them?!

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

That would leave a poor snook like me hiring someone. Another expense.
Betty G

BallBounces said...

Update: I just spent close to an hour dealing with Box 42. I have a value in Box 42, but there is no Box 42 on the QuickTax panel.

After trying to get online support (it didn't work), I called the help desk and spoke to a very nice person over in India.

After about 15 minutes, she concluded that this year it is no longer necessary to input the value in Box 42.

I'm not entirely convinced she's right, but it's a small amount and I may just let it go.

BallBounces said...

Update Update: I got another response from QuickTax via email. The response I got from email is different than the one I got from the person over the phone. I'll probably spend hours tracking down about $100 of "adjusted cost base".

Anonymous said...

hi kids,
UFile has box 42 (and a nice help explaination). it's cheaper to use too ! www.ufile.ca

Anonymous said...

There is information on the back of the T3 slip that indicates where each line should go in your return.

"... nothing intellectually compelling or challenging.. bald assertions coupled to superstition... woefully pathetic"