Canadian Tax Resources for CPAs
Practical guides, legislative updates, and expert analysis curated by Cadesky Tax for CPAs and tax professionals across Canada. Free to read, built to keep your practice current.
Featured
How to Use AI for Tax Calculations: A Practical Guide for Canadian CPAs
AI can cut hours off complex tax work, but only if you use it correctly. Learn how Canadian CPAs are applying AI to purification planning, trust distributions, and owner-manager remuneration. Includes ready-to-use prompts, worked examples, and a verification checklist.
2025 Federal Budget: A Turn of the Page
A refreshing budget that breaks from a decade of tax increases on private businesses, focused instead on investment, incentives, and growth.
Tariffs Tax Guide: Canada and the U.S.
The shift in U.S. trade policy has fundamentally changed cross-border commerce. Key takeaways on tariff classification, valuation, and strategy from our seminar with customs expert Robert Kreklewetz.
2024 Tax Season Survey: What CPAs Said
Over 1,300 practitioners responded. See what CPAs said about capital gains complexity, AI use in practice, and the issues that defined the 2024 tax year.
International Tax
Doing Business in the US from Canada: Tax Implications and Strategic Structures
Most Canadian advisors operate with dangerous half-knowledge of US tax. This comprehensive guide covers entity selection, treaty provisions, permanent establishment risk, and the decisions facing Canadian businesses expanding south.
How to Sell Your US Business Without Paying Tax Twice
The difference between selling shares versus assets can cost over half a million dollars on a $2 million sale. A detailed look at how to structure a US business exit to reduce combined Canadian and US tax.
Do I Need a US Company to Sell to American Customers?
What starts as casual business trips south can quickly create an expensive tax mess. Learn when a US entity is actually required, when it is not, and how to avoid creating taxable presence without realizing it.
Foreign Tax Credit in Canada: The Complete CPA Guide to Avoiding CRA Denials
In the majority of FTC disputes, the error is on CRA's part, not the practitioner's. This guide arms CPAs with the tools to calculate credits correctly, identify CRA errors, and protect clients' legitimate claims.
How to Handle CRA Foreign Tax Credit Disputes: A CPA's Defense Strategy
CRA verifies foreign tax credits almost universally and often gets it wrong. Learn how to challenge reassessments, what documentation wins disputes, and strategies from practitioners who file successful objections year after year.
Foreign Tax Credit Expense Allocation: What Reduces Your Net Foreign Income?
The FTC formula requires net foreign income, not gross. A practical framework for which expenses must be deducted, which are allocated on a reasonable basis, and which never get sourced at all under the ITA rules.
Earn CPD Credits. Go Deeper on the Topics That Matter.
Our on-demand seminars give Canadian CPAs and tax professionals accredited CPD hours on capital gains, trusts, international tax, rollovers, and more. Taught by Michael Cadesky and Canada's leading practitioners. Learn at your own pace, on your own schedule.
Tax Trend
Trust Returns: Check Your Schedule 15 Data
A timely alert for trust return preparers: Schedule 15 beneficial ownership data requires careful verification. CRA is paying close attention to these disclosures in the 2025 filing season and errors are drawing scrutiny.
Trusts and AMT: A Big Headache
The interplay between trust income allocations and the reformed alternative minimum tax is creating unexpected surprises for beneficiaries. Key considerations for trust distributions in the post-reform AMT environment.
SCOTUS and IEEPA: What Happens Next?
The Supreme Court's treatment of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act has direct implications for Canadian businesses subject to U.S. tariffs and trade measures. What tax practitioners need to watch.
Trusts Update: The Vefghi Case
A significant court decision affecting trust planning in Canada. Analysis of the Vefghi case and its implications for income allocations, discretionary distribution strategies, and the validity of trust structures.
TFSA: Making the Most of It
TFSAs remain one of the most underutilized planning tools in Canada. Strategies for maximizing contribution room, optimal asset placement, and common mistakes that attract CRA scrutiny.
Changes to the Voluntary Disclosures Program
Updated eligibility criteria, compliance requirements, and strategic considerations for practitioners advising clients with unreported income or foreign assets under CRA's refreshed VDP framework.
Capital Gains
Recovery of AMT: Goals and Strategies in 2025
Many Canadians received a surprise AMT bill in 2024, triggered by the reformed rules and a rush to realize gains before the proposed inclusion rate increase. A recovery roadmap with strategies clients can act on now.
Capital Gains Exemption: The New $1.25M Limit
With the raised limit of $1,250,000, the capital gains exemption can save up to $450,000 in tax per person. A review of qualifying conditions, planning factors, and the most common issues that block the exemption from being available.
Canadian Entrepreneurs' Incentive: What You Need to Know
A reduced tax rate on capital gains from qualifying small business corporation shares. Legislation is now in force, and the phase-in has been accelerated from 10 years to 5, making this incentive significantly more valuable for business owners.
Capital Gains and Reserves: Should You Take Back a Mortgage?
A vendor take-back mortgage spreads a capital gain over five years. With capital gains treatment settled at the 50% inclusion rate for individuals, this can produce real tax savings rather than just a deferral.
Income Splitting and Capital Gains
Each individual has $250,000 of capital gains per year at the 50% inclusion rate, opening a new dimension to income splitting. A look at how to spread gains across family members and the attribution rules CPAs need to navigate.
Capital Loss Carryback: Time-Sensitive Planning
For clients who carried back a capital loss from 2023 and now hold gains in 2024 at a potentially higher inclusion rate, the interaction creates both risks and planning opportunities. Time may be short.
Guides and Resources
Common Trust Issues in 2025: Insights for Canadian CPAs
A practical review of income allocation problems, attribution rules, and the most common errors practitioners encounter when managing trusts. Based on real-world issues addressed in our Trusts seminar.
Principal Residence Exemption: What Every Canadian Should Know
Your principal residence does not have to be your primary home. The exemption can apply to cottages, foreign properties, houseboats, and more. A clear breakdown of qualifying conditions, the one-plus rule, and how to claim correctly.
Change in Use Rules for the Principal Residence Exemption
When a property transitions between personal and income-generating use, the tax consequences can be significant. A practical guide to complete and partial change-of-use rules and how to protect the PRE on conversion.
Intergenerational Transfer Rules in 2025: Family Business Succession
The 2024 intergenerational transfer rules represent a significant shift in how family business successions can be structured in Canada. A comparison of the immediate and gradual transfer approaches.
Tax Guide to Cross-Border Gifts: Canada to the U.S. and Vice Versa
What happens when a Canadian makes a gift to an American? Most people get this wrong. A clear breakdown of how Canada's deemed disposition rules and U.S. gift tax interact, with analysis for gifts in each direction.
AMT: When Enough Is Not Enough
For years, most Canadians did not need to worry about the alternative minimum tax. The reformed AMT has changed that. An introduction to how the new rules work, who is most at risk, and the planning implications.
