Beware autopopulating software tax form from CRA?

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ringyFinance
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Beware autopopulating software tax form from CRA?

Post by ringyFinance »

I've used StudioTax for a few years, seems like a fine package. This year is the first that I had it connect to CRA and auto-populate some data into the electronic return. It seems like a big mistake. I use to be fine entering in T3 slip data into the electronic return by hand. The auto-population pulls in much more detailed data, but incomplete. For example, rather than a single number from a box in a T3 slip, the auto-population caused the software to create one T3 slip per disposition transaction. Because of that, the software requires individual country names for foreign income. That level detail is not readily available. So I'm going to start from scratch using a new return.

Anyway, just thought I'd put it out there (my take on the auto-population of data from CRA) in case I'm approaching it the wrong way.
Davis
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Re: Beware autopopulating software tax form from CRA?

Post by Davis »

I had the same experience with Studio Tax. Still, I found auto-fill to be a good system because it caught a mistake that I made - I was checking all of the amounts and had written an amount incorrectly. I could just as easily have transcribed it Indore.

I also had a problem with amounts in T3 Box 25 (Foreign non-business income). These amounts are paid to me by a Canadian REIT that operates in Europe. No foreign tax is paid on these amounts, so there is no amount in Box 34 (Foreign non-business income tax paid). The Box 25 amounts are transferred to the T2209.

I got the following error that prevents me from Netfiling:

"T2209 Foreign non-business income without tax paid. Only foreign non-business income with associated tax paid can be added to T2209".

In the end, I was able to work around this by putting $1.00 in Box 34, but it took a couple of tries.

I let Studio Tax know of the problem, and while they responded quickly, the response was not helpful.
ringyFinance
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Re: Beware autopopulating software tax form from CRA?

Post by ringyFinance »

Interesting experience. I didn't necessarily assume that the problem was with the software. For all I knew, it may be CRA systems maintains the rough equivalent of individual T3 slip entries into their own database (without country name), and perhaps the auto-populating protocol makes assumptions of about how to translate that into data for the electronic return.

Your story prompts me to write to them about how to fix it. There is now an unremovable entry in Schedule 3 or 4 (I'm not at my personal computer right now, so can't check) referring to all these T3 slips that should not exist. I will also try blanking out all the data in the T3 slips (or see if there is a way to banish them).

Thanks.
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Re: Beware autopopulating software tax form from CRA?

Post by Peculiar_Investor »

Automation is helpful, but remember the critical part. Trust, but verify!

As discussed in another topic, CRA's Auto-fill my return functionality is still relatively new (2nd year IIRC) and therefore it will probably take some time before all the nuances and kinks are found and resolved.

I'm using UFile 2016 for tax preparation and this year is the first time I've tried out the CRA auto-fill my return capability. For the most part it has worked well, but it still requires my review of the data. That's a good thing IMHO. Part of the challenge is it operates somewhat differently than what I'd expect. For example, in one case I received a single T3 from an asset management company that covered three separate funds. I had manually entered the T3 before using auto-fill my return, which downloaded three separate T3's. UFile asks we to accept each downloaded slip, so it was relatively easy to reconcile the CRA data with the tax slip that I had received.

While the auto-fill my return data might present itself differently than you'd expect, remember that it is the data that CRA is going to use the assess your return.
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OnlyMyOpinion
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Re: Beware autopopulating software tax form from CRA?

Post by OnlyMyOpinion »

Yes, I've found that the slip data the CRA has available is more 'granular' (reports by individual cusip?) wheras TDDI rolls up several sources and sums some data. I actually found the added granularity helpful, but still couldn't push the 'download' button. Maybe next year (with followup vetting of course).
ringyFinance
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Re: Beware autopopulating software tax form from CRA?

Post by ringyFinance »

Peculiar_Investor, I didn't realize that auto-filling was so recent. I thought that I was just a dinosaur.

Funny that you should recommend trusting but verifying. I found the problem with missing source country names and income data in the midst of trying to print the PDF form -- specifically in order to check my return. I find it easier to check over the PDF printout, as the data isn't strewn over many different tabs. However, the software checks the return before preparing the PDF, and it complained about the missing data.

Anyway, I managed to solve the problem by entering into 1 cents for the income data (thanks to Davis for the idea), and I found that the source nation is selected from a pulldown menu, with one choice being "Unknown". The odd thing is that none of the other selections in the pulldown menu are sensible, e.g., "Country 1". Ah well.

OnlyMyOpinion, I found it interesting that you realized that CRA was more fine-grain, and yet you had not pressed the download. I assume that whatever software you use allowed you to view the data before populating the form?
Last edited by ringyFinance on 19 Apr 2017 23:09, edited 2 times in total.
OnlyMyOpinion
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Re: Beware autopopulating software tax form from CRA?

Post by OnlyMyOpinion »

No, much more luddite than that - I make and keep a "print to pdf" of each slip from the CRA site to compare with those I received from TDDI. That is how I've noticed the difference.
ringyFinance
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Re: Beware autopopulating software tax form from CRA?

Post by ringyFinance »

Very interesting. I have not explored the CRA site at *all*. All I did was ask the software to connect and get data. Had no idea that the CRA data could be examined outside of the software. Once I get my return properly checked and submitted, I might go exploring on CRA.
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