Taxes

Top Four Commonly Overlooked Tax Tips

1.      Medical expenses: If you pay a healthcare premium to your employer, this is considered a medical expense as well as any deductibles or out-of-pocket expenses that are not covered by your plan. If you purchase healthcare insurance to travel, this can also be claimed as a medical expense.

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Taxes

Caring For An Aging Parent? What You Need To Know At Tax Time

Are you a caregiver?: Age, income and living situation are the deciding factors for determining a caregiver for tax purposes. If your parent or parents are 65 or over, have less than $18,645 in income and are living with you, you can claim the caregiver amount. You can also claim parents under the age of 65 if they are dependent on you due to an infirmity.

Support from afar: Even if you are providing support to your parent or parents, they have to live with you in order to claim the caregiver credit. Sending money to support them does not qualify.

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Investing

How Many Hours Did You Work For Yourself Last Week?

I am reading through David Bach’s book entitled The Automatic Millionaire.  It is a very straightforward, easy to read book about how to set yourself up for success financially no matter how much money you earn.

One of the neat things Bach brings up in the book is the question: “How many hours did you work for yourself last week?” If you look back to last week and discover that you didn’t save a penny of your earnings, then that means you didn’t actually work for yourself at all.

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Taxes

Do I Get A Tax Slip For An RESP?

If you have a Registered Education Savings Plan (RESP) for your children, you might be wondering about what tax slips or receipts you may need in order to file your income tax.

First of all, you will not receive a contribution receipt for putting money into an RESP, as contributions towards RESPS are not tax deductible

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Taxes

What Tax Receipts Do I Get For My RRSP?

Tax time can get confusing with all the various tax slips you get from your bank.  It is sometimes hard to keep track of them all.   You might be wondering what tax slips you should be expecting in the mail if you have an RRSP, before efiling online for the year.

1. Contribution Receipts – You will only get receipts if you made contributions.

If you made any contributions during 2010 or during the first 60 days of 2011, you will receive one or more contribution receipts from your financial institution.  You would have already received the first 60 days of 2010 receipt in the spring of 2010 and you may have already claimed this on your 2009 taxes.  However, you will want to watch out for the remainder of 2010 receipt (March 2nd to December 31st) as well as for the first 60 days of 2011 receipt (Jan 1st to March 1st).

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