T1 General Software for All Canadian Residents
Free! No Limitations!
But No Netfile and No Quebec TP-1-V
Taxman 2019
Version 1.4 is Ready!
While updating for 2019 I found a problem with Nova Scotia's 2018 Schedule 2 (see 2018's Bugs and Version History for more).
Every year I pray that all that I need to do is change a few numbers here and a few labels there. A week of work and the upgrade is done. Unfortunately no one is listening to my prayers, especially this year.
No doubt people bitched that numbers on the forms weren't in numerical order and you couldn't find them in the guide or on the forms. In 2017 the guide listed things in the order they appeared on the forms. In 2018 they listed things in numerical order. Neither plan seems to have worked, so now everthing has been re-numbered in an attempt to get both guide and forms in numerical order (which they still failed to do).
|
|
Instead of just getting rid of all the silly deductions that politicians have piled up over the years, the numbers have moved to five digits long. Enough room to let your tax return get to the size of a phone book. CRA has been decreasing the font size so things would fit on one page. But now they've reversed course and nothing fits on one page. The basic federal return with Schedule 1 used to be 6 pages. Now it's eight pages, with one and a half of those pages blank. No one here is thinking about the environment, trying to save a few trees. In fact, CRA brags in the guide of how they've increased the "white space." My customers used to receive just stickers to put on their tax returns. Now they get sent the complete tax guide and forms wrapped in plastic. Many bring these tax packages to me and when I showed a German lady my waist-high pile she said: "You Canadians, you have too many trees." Clearly, if global warming is coming, we don't have the wherewithal to stop it.
|
Before mailing in that tax return, just to be safe, come back and download the latest upgrade.
If you already have the full Taxman program installed on your computer (it doesn't matter which year just so long as it works), then you only need:
 Taxman2019 Upgrade Version 1.4 (19setup4.exe, 2 MB)
Last revised Mar 29, 2020 see Bugs and Version History for more.
Clicking the link below takes you to Google Drive where you have to press the 'Download' button. You then go to a page telling you the file can't be scanned for viruses — press 'Download anyway'. Then a pop-up appears and you hit 'Save File'.
Download Upgrade Version 1.4
from Google Drive!
After downloading, just double-click 19setup4.exe to install. A shortcut to run the program will appear on your Start Menu and your Desktop. Your data files are 19tables.mdb and taxbiz.mdb — back'em up! During an install your data files, if they already exist, are never replaced, but an uninstall will delete them forevermore. If you used Taxman in the past, go to 'Tools\Data Transfer' on the menu and press 'Get Basics from past year' to update 19tables.mdb with the unlikely to change stuff in 18tables.mdb. After Get Basics runs you'll be asked if you want to update taxbiz.mdb, say No because the structure of taxbiz.mdb is unchanged so the best bet is to hide the new taxbiz.mdb and then point the program to the old taxbiz.mdb (look up 'Data Transfer' in the Help index for more).
|
|
Otherwise you must get the full program, the El Gordo version:
Taxman2019 Full Version 1.4 (19txmf4.exe, 7.4 MB)
Revised Mar 29, 2020
Clicking the link below takes you to Google Drive where you have to press the 'Download' button. You then go to a page telling you the file can't be scanned for viruses — press 'Download anyway'. Then a pop-up appears and you hit 'Save File'.
Download Full Version 1.4
from Google Drive!
|
 New for 2019
CRA proudly states they've eliminated Schedule 1. This is fake-news. Schedule 1 isn't dead, it's been renamed Pages 6 and 7 of the return.
Years back, I was stunned when CRA's Schedule 8, CPP contributions, went from half a page to three pages and there were three different versions. I thought that was the pinnacle of convolutedness. Well, colour me gobsmacked because now we're talking six pages in length.
Instead of just raising the rate, we've been given a new separate "enhanced" CPP contribution. The math required to add in another type of contribution is stupefying. But all you have to do is update the Worksheet and it will fill in Schedule 8, and if you're not making an election on Schedule 8, then you don't need to go there at all.
CRA has changed the WITB, Schedule 6, to allow income from communal organizations to be added to the "working income". This change is retroactive, going back to 2014, and it may allow some to now have sufficient income to claim the WITB. If so, a T1 Adjustment Request must be mailed in. And the WITB is now called the CWB.
Ontario has added two auxiliary forms which each calculate a credit on their respective parent forms. I've added them to the bottom of their parent forms, the provincial tax and credit forms. These new forms take their numbers from somewhere else so, once you update the spouse's info, they will recalculate, as things change, automatically. But don't forget where they're hiding.
On the auxiliary to the ON tax form, ON428-A, I've added a checkbox. Not everyone is allowed to claim this credit so with the checkbox you can opt out. Similarly, I've added a checkbox to the ON tax reduction at line 60 of the ON tax form. By default, the boxes are ticked to make a claim.
Late in 2018 the Liberals gave us "accelerated investment incentive properties", which turned calculating your annual asset depreciation into a nightmare. This year they've added zero-emission vehicles, bought after March 18, 2019, into the mix. Taxman will do the math (Inch'Allah), but whether your asset fits all their rules will require further study by you.
NB is now allowing tuition to be deducted again, but nothing for the number of months at school. BC has become the same as NB, having dropped the number of months at school.
The federal Climate Action Incentive, Schedule 14, no longer applies to NB, but AB has now signed on. YT is the first to have their own Schedule 14, Carbon Price Rebate. This gives you money to offset the federal carbon levy. Be warned, with all Schedule 14s, CRA's rules run a page in length — my forms have the rules greatly abbreviated.
And last but not least, NL has added a search and rescue credit.
 Bugs and Version History
- With Version 1.4, double-clicking the CPP/QPP controls (or pressing F8) will bring in the max contribution possible (before the enhanced portion was missing). I've also added more warnings, hoping to direct more people to the Worksheet. And I'm still finding warnings with 3-digit numbers that need 2 more digits added in.
- Somehow I missed downloading Alberta's new Schedule 14, the Climate Action Incentive. Version 1.3 corrects that oversight. Alberta's tax guide doesn't mention a new Schedule 14, it's like they're embarrassed to be joined with the feds in climate action.
Also corrected by Version 1.3, for any province with a Schedule 14: if the Schedule 14 wasn't open when you printed your return, it was possible that another province's Schedule 14 got printed.
- Version 1.2 fixes two bugs: the spouse amount at Line 30300 would not have been calculated if you entered "0.00" for spouse's income; and if you directly entered EI premiums at Line 31200 you wouldn't have been allowed to enter the max permissible for 2019.
- I've finally seen all the forms (I thought I had!). Version 1.1 has a revised T1A, Request for Loss Carryback, and with the new accelerated CCA properties the program can now handle classes 12, 13, 14 and 15. Also, whatever database you used to bring in the basics was, in the past, assumed to be the path to last year's data. Now, the path only gets saved if the database has the right name.
- One user reported that Taxman2019 is classified by Symantec (Norton) as a security risk (WS.reputation.1) and Symantec deletes it. His solution is "to click details and, down at the bottom is a 'restore' option that will get the file out of quarantine".
- I was finally able to generate the data transfer Error 3163 ("field is too small"). It had nothing to do with data tranfer or Windows security. It was just that the path to the old database was more than 50 characters long and it couldn't be saved because the field was too small. I upped the field size to 80 characters and all seems well (email me if I'm wrong).
From the burning of Notre Dame to the burning of Australia, with all the protests in between, 2019 was a godforsaken year. Our kids are rioting in the streets, but the only laws getting passed are tax breaks (which are necessary because the rich would rather die than live without their own island stocked with 14-year-old girls). Things can only get worse. Evangelicals think that a trigger-happy Bully-boy Trump will bring on the Second Coming. But the Second Coming has come and gone two-thousand-years ago — with the half dozen righteous safely making it to Heaven. We are the progeny of all the unworthy left behind. God ain't coming to save us. Clearly the burning of Notre Dame makes this point. All we can do is pay our taxes, keep our heads down, and try to avoid the plague.
|
|
