11 Jun Clearline CPA’s COVID-19 Resources

First and foremost we want to wish everyone well. We hope that you and your loved ones are safe and coping through this difficult time. The last few months have been very difficult for small businesses such as Clearline and for our clients. As BC has started its efforts to reopen businesses, we hope the worst is behind us and that we start to see economic activity in the province pick up again.

Each year, CPA firms go through their busiest time of year from February through June. This is because most companies choose December 31 as their fiscal year end date and various CRA filing deadlines occur during these months. The Canada Revenue Agency (“CRA”) has deferred most of these deadlines due to COVID-19, which we have written upon regularly over the last few months and will continue to do so as necessary. As a result of the CRA deadline extensions, as well as what impact COVID-19 and the social distancing policies have had on you and your business, many of you may have outstanding corporate and personal tax filings. If this is the case, please reach out to us as soon as possible to reconcile this.

As a business we are normally quite quiet in the months of July and August. However, given the delay in the filing deadlines as well as the increased red tape associated with applying for government benefits related to COVID-19, we expect to be a bit busier than usual. We will be here to help you through these summer months and beyond.

If you have not yet had a chance to take a look at our writings on the government benefits for COVID-19 we encourage you to do so. For a comprehensive overview of all of the government benefits you can click here if you are a business owner, and click here for personal taxpayer information. To date we have also released over a dozen individual postings on various government benefits. If you would like to read any of these historical postings you can access them on our latest news webpage.

The CRA has made a few more recent announcements. The first is that they have confirmed they will not apply penalties and interest on personal tax returns filed between the revised deadline date of June 1, 2020 and September 1, 2020, which is when all payments are due. The second is a delay for corporations. Corporations that would otherwise have a filing deadline in June, July or August 2020 are now due by September 1, 2020. You can read about the various personal and corporate tax deadlines on the CRA’s website here.

As always, if you have any concerns regarding your personal or corporate tax filings, accounting services, or any of the government benefits, please contact your Clearline representative.