Auto-fill My Return

Income tax policy, rules, problems, strategy and software. Property and consumption taxes too.
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AltaRed
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Re: Auto-fill My Return

Post by AltaRed »

freedom_2008 wrote:Alta and ltr, agree with you both. But the TDW reports cost base as ZREO on all our HSA T5008s. I want no issue dealing with CRA, thus I entered all the T5008s with updated cost base (= the proceed).
CRA knows this and if you go through the materials on the CRA site, they already acknowledge that ACB data may be missing, and legitimately so in many cases when the FI cannot be certain of an investor's ACB, e.g. same security at another institution.

Albeit why financial institutions would fail to include obvious ACB of $10 for HISAs is beyond comprehension. Sloppiness is the best I can assume.
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Re: Auto-fill My Return

Post by kenwood »

I have doubts about this feature.

One of my slip from TD (money market fund interest), is not present on my return after using auto fill. I did not get a clear explanation as to why after talking to TD. Since the slip is not on CRA, does that mean they have no record of it?
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AltaRed
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Re: Auto-fill My Return

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kenwood wrote:Since the slip is not on CRA, does that mean they have no record of it?
CRA has no record of it.....for now at least. That does not excuse you though from reporting all worldwide income on your tax return. I have certain amounts of income every year for which I never receive a tax slip and I report it accordingly on the right line number in Schedule 4.
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AltaRed
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Re: Auto-fill My Return

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Not directly applicable, but I am grumpy today....

Why is it that CRA feels obligated to send out these stupid letters a week or so after a return is Netfiled saying "you have a balance of X outstanding and can pay...blah...blah....blah" My spouse gets these stupid things every year (due to pension income splitting from me), despite having paid online, her balance outstanding within 5 days of having Netfiled? WTF can the system not check the Account record first to see if the payment has been made?
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kcowan
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Re: Auto-fill My Return

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Probably written in COBOL AR. Not "possible"!
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Re: Auto-fill My Return

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kcowan wrote:Probably written in COBOL AR. Not "possible"!
Why on earth would the programming language matter. The programmer and the data matter. They ain't so good.




Here's my experience. I did the auto-fill. Since I have to paper file I decided to match "auto T-slips" to "paper T-slips". Here's what I found:
- CPP T4? were good
- OAS T4? were good
- T4? from former employer for retiree benefits was good.
- T5 from brokerage were good
- T5 from stock held outside of brokerage was good
- T5 from RBC for interest was missed by CRA but sent by RBC
- T3's: CRA had many (1 for each holding) from Vanguard and I-shasres. Brokerages consolidated them. They didn't identify the product, just the trustee. Couldn't tell wat was/was not included.

Eventually, I just deleted the autio-fill and prepared my return as always. Auto-fill was a total waste, I couldn't tell if what it included was accurate, but could tell it was innaccurate (no T5 for RBC interest).

Hopefully, anyone who relies on auto-fill won't have to pay a penalty for not understanmding that the Tx's sent from brokerages do not match the Tx's CRA has.
I don't intend to offend anyone, that part is just a bonus.

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AltaRed
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Re: Auto-fill My Return

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kumquat wrote:Hopefully, anyone who relies on auto-fill won't have to pay a penalty for not understanmding that the Tx's sent from brokerages do not match the Tx's CRA has.
Don't know why you would say that. CRA only has what the brokerages send them. If there is a mismatch, it's the FI's fault and ultimately the taxpayer's fault for not validating the materials. Auto-fill is really only meant to decrease data entry errors which people do make (and I have myself made data entry errors now and then over the years that I 've caught during the QC check). I do agree with you that I don't like the individual entries the brokerages send CRA rather than the consolidated tax slip the brokerages send us. I didn't use that, nor the T5008, data from Auto Fill and won't download those in the future.
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Chuck
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Re: Auto-fill My Return

Post by Chuck »

Used auto-fill (with studio tax). It's a nice convenience but as others have mentioned, one still has to review that all forms are present and accounted for. CRA was missing a couple so I had to hand enter them.

And as also mentioned, no auto currency conversion for non-CAD earnings. Seems like an easy fix.

Although I've always thought the FI should go one step further and do the conversion for me and issue ALL t-slips in CAD. I can see on in my TD income summary they have the date/amount of every US$ disbursement, why not convert them at the spot rate for the day and sum up the CAD$ amount for the t-slip? Maximizes accuracy (vs using the annual average rate) and convenience. Sort of what computers are good for.
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Re: Auto-fill My Return

Post by DenisD »

IB computers do the conversion for me.
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Re: Auto-fill My Return

Post by big easy »

On the TDDI website, TDB8150 buy sells are reported on a T5008 as others have noted. #units= 350, proceeds of sale 3502.

When I go to CRA My Account and look at my T-slips there is a T5 from TD Greenline with the $2 interest from TDD8150 but there is no such T5 on the TDDI website!!! Has anyone else noted this?
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Re: Auto-fill My Return

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big easy wrote:On the TDDI website, TDB8150 buy sells are reported on a T5008 as others have noted. #units= 350, proceeds of sale 3502.

When I go to CRA My Account and look at my T-slips there is a T5 from TD Greenline with the $2 interest from TDD8150 but there is no such T5 on the TDDI website!!! Has anyone else noted this?
That is because mutual fund tax slips are issued by the mutual fund arm of TD, not the TD DI brokerage... and because the amount is so small, TD Greenline likely did not issue a T5.

Added: My speculation only... but I know that is how some other big banks handle it.
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Re: Auto-fill My Return

Post by Bylo Selhi »

Presumably CRA's Auto-fill my return program is a first step to eventually make it possible for many people to file returns online without having to buy or use tax software. This article is about Intuit's efforts in the US to thwart this sort of thing using a variety of specious tactics and arguments. I have no idea if they're also lobbying Ottawa. Anyone know?

How the Maker of TurboTax Fought Free, Simple Tax Filing
Advocates say tens of millions of taxpayers could use such a system each year, saving them a collective $2 billion and 225 million hours in prep costs and time, according to one estimate...

Intuit has spent about $11.5 million on federal lobbying in the past five years — more than Apple or Amazon. Although the lobbying spans a range of issues, Intuit's disclosures pointedly note that the company "opposes IRS government tax preparation."...
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Re: Auto-fill My Return

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Yup. Not surprising that they would try to protect their product. They've put a lot of effort into making it a money-making pain-in-the-ass since they bought it a few years ago. I've stuck with it but should switch to something that is less 'in your face' with their embedded advertising pages, etc.
Intuit Inc. / KEN SLEMKO, Consultant
Consultant Firm: FleishmanHillard Canada Inc.
Client name: Intuit Inc.
Initial registration start date: 2011-03-04
Registration Number: 777599-278564
Total Number of Communication Reports: 13
Monthly communication reports in the last 6 months: 2
Communication date: 2016-02-09 Posted date: 2016-03-04
Designated Public Office Holders who participated in the communication:
Jacques Hudon, Director of Policy Office of the Minister of National Revenue, Canada Revenue Agency (CRA)
Subject Matter of the communication: Taxation and Finance

https://lobbycanada.gc.ca/app/secure/oc ... 3662863206
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Re: Auto-fill My Return

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Bylo Selhi wrote:Presumably CRA's Auto-fill my return program is a first step to eventually make it possible for many people to file returns online without having to buy or use tax software. This article is about Intuit's efforts in the US to thwart this sort of thing using a variety of specious tactics and arguments. I have no idea if they're also lobbying Ottawa. Anyone know?

How the Maker of TurboTax Fought Free, Simple Tax Filing
Advocates say tens of millions of taxpayers could use such a system each year, saving them a collective $2 billion and 225 million hours in prep costs and time, according to one estimate...

Intuit has spent about $11.5 million on federal lobbying in the past five years — more than Apple or Amazon. Although the lobbying spans a range of issues, Intuit's disclosures pointedly note that the company "opposes IRS government tax preparation."...
Disruptive technology doesn't like disruption. Notwithstanding the $40.00 I spend on Turbo-Tax it beats the $1500.00 I was paying the accountant.
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AltaRed
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Re: Auto-fill My Return

Post by AltaRed »

Intuit will lose market share anyway. What with the likes of UFile, Simple Tax, Studio Tax, etc. tax software is now a commodity.
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Re: Auto-fill My Return

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AltaRed wrote:Intuit will lose market share anyway. What with the likes of UFile, Simple Tax, Studio Tax, etc. tax software is now a commodity.
Why doesn't CRA just provide these programs free of charge? I have always used Turbo Tax and reluctant to change. Has anyone changed and had a better experience. I am a Mac user and at one time Turbo Tax was the only provider for a Mac.
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Re: Auto-fill My Return

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A reasonable idea but why should CRA spend taxpayer money as long as others do it for them? Studio Tax is a perfect example. I used it for 1 return this year because I ran out of 4 freebies with UFile.

One good reason why CRA should not get bogged down in this is the number of issues, questions, support, troubleshooting that goes on with all these programs. Intuit and UFile in particular have entire Support Community Forums active at tax time on these things. Takes time and resources to handle botched installations, software conflicts and who knows what else on some of the more quirkly cases. Just scan those Support forums to get a feel for it.
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Re: Auto-fill My Return

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Thegipper wrote:
AltaRed wrote:Intuit will lose market share anyway. What with the likes of UFile, Simple Tax, Studio Tax, etc. tax software is now a commodity.
Why doesn't CRA just provide these programs free of charge? I have always used Turbo Tax and reluctant to change. Has anyone changed and had a better experience. I am a Mac user and at one time Turbo Tax was the only provider for a Mac.
I switched from UFile to Simple Tax this year. Easy to do. Simple Tax is online so it works with a Mac. (I did my taxes on a machine running Linux Mint)
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Re: Auto-fill My Return

Post by kcowan »

AltaRed wrote:Takes time and resources to handle botched installations, software conflicts and who knows what else on some of the more quirkly cases. Just scan those Support forums to get a feel for it.
:thumbsup:
It is tough enough to explain the tax rules! Leave the technology to the industry.

If they would just fix the T5008 problem, I think it would work for 90% of the online filers. They are certainly moving in the right direction.
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Re: Auto-fill My Return

Post by snowback96 »

AltaRed wrote:Studio Tax is a perfect example. I used it for 1 return this year because I ran out of 4 freebies with UFile.
How was that experience? Did everything transfer over easily from uFile? Are you tempted to switch all your filings over to Studio Tax?
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Re: Auto-fill My Return

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The experience was quite acceptable. A more direct interface, i.e. needing to know what forms one needed, but there was nothing that confused me. I'd use it again.

I didn't transfer anything over. This was for an Estate filing (starting from scratch). Until I know whether UFile data will transfer over to Studio Tax properly, I will stick with UFile (not concerned about a $20 9 or less software purchase)
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Re: Auto-fill My Return

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I see that TDDI's 2016 T5008 statement looks much different this year. Not sure if others are used to this format and TDDI is just playing catchup?
Now the column headers are numbered to correspond with the boxes of a T5008 tax slip.
The book value column (box 20) remains empty as we'd expect, but clearly continuing to steer towards greater buy-sell reporting to the CRA directly by the brokers.
I don't autofill our tax returns, I input everything manually into TurboTax, including our Schedule 3 info. I ensure it aligns with the T5008 slip data but don't actually use them.
If you are choosing to auto-fill, I believe you can choose to exclude some info such as the T5008. If you include it, I'd carefully check that your Schedule 3 is correct.

Here is an image of 2016 vs the previous year:
TDDI 2016 T5008 statement.jpg
TDDI 2015 T5008 statement.jpg
Last edited by OnlyMyOpinion on 18 Feb 2017 11:19, edited 1 time in total.
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AltaRed
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Re: Auto-fill My Return

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I imagine brokers are catching up for greater use of Auto-fill. I tried it last year with Ufile and there was some 'bad' fill of data (including no defined cso deleted it and did my own Schedule 3. As I reported last year, there does not seem to be a currency 'type' yet on the T5008 (unless TD has converted it and if they did, what forex rates did they use?). IOW, there is no apparent conversion from USD to CAD on the TD form, or when using Auto-Fill. If not, that is still a very serious flaw.
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Re: Auto-fill My Return

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AltaRed wrote:I imagine brokers are catching up for greater use of Auto-,fill. I tried it last year with Ufile and there was some 'bad' fill of data (including no defined cso deleted it and did my own Schedule 3. As I reported last year, there does not seem to be a currency 'type' yet on the T5008 (unless TD has converted it and if they did, what forex rates did they use?). IOW, there is no apparent conversion from USD to CAD on the TD form, or when using Auto-Fill. If not, that is still a very serious flaw.
I was surprised to discover last year that the CRA (My Account online) had an individual T5008 slip/page for each and every sell transaction we did, even for each tranche selling under one order, even sells of the investment savings acc TDB8150. It also included sells on the US side, reported in USD.
TDDI did not have all of these individual T5008 slips available for account holders on their site. They provided only the T5008 Trading Summary that lists all transactions - same info, but a different format. The Statement also includes buys (but not DRIP purchases, we still get to track them ourselves :( ).
I had never looked to the CRA as a vetting source prior to 2015. I now consider it a prerequisite to download the information the CRA has in My Account just before completing my income tax.
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Re: Auto-fill My Return

Post by AltaRed »

I look at the CRA data as well (did last year) to ensure there was alignment, but as you say, auto-fill T5008 data was a mess and I deleted it all and did my own entries. Currency IS a gaping error and they need to fix that...i.e. with a data point that triggers a tax software entry to flag the need to insert the forex factors. They will probably eventually get it right....but in the meantime???
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