T1 General Software for All Canadian Residents
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Taxman 2023
Version 2.0 is Ready!
Version 2.0 corrects a few non-critical errors, see Bugs and Versions for more.
When I was a kid, I learned right from wrong every Sunday night watching the Disney show. One night they had a boy-and-his-dog story and the young dog kills a chicken. So how do you stop a dog from killing chickens? You tie the dead chicken to the dog’s neck, so he’ll have to drag that dead chicken around with him everywhere he goes. In the show the dog soon figures out that chickens are best left alone.
I thought that was a clever way to explain the situation to a creature that can't speak and is not all that bright. But I was too young to realize that if you tried that with a human they'd just kill more chickens. Dogs are blessed with having neither pride nor vanity to fog their thinking. But the cleverest human can be so crazed that he can only come up with "Kill more chickens!"
Germany will forever have the Holocaust hung around its neck. And with one tragedy leading to another, Israel will forever be dragging the Palestinians around with them.
The poor Jews just wanted a country they could call home. Some piece of the planet where they wouldn't have to deal with someone demanding their land back. But they're never going to get it. We Canadians can assure them of that. We stole the land off the Indians hundreds of years ago, and they haven’t forgotten it. And we all know they never will.
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Before mailing in that tax return, just to be safe, come back and download the latest upgrade.
You are likely to be warned that Taxman could be dangerous. Your browser or security software will see Taxman as an unknown executable program and it will hide Taxman away so you can't run it. Here we have AI overruling a human because biological creatures don't know what they're doing, can't be trusted, and may hurt themselves. Maybe you've seen this movie before?
So you have to either ignore the warning if you can, or tell the blocking program that Taxman is safe (you may have to hit the "more info" link to find out how), or temporarily turn down your level of security. Show your computer who's the boss!
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:
 Taxman2023 Upgrade Version 2.0 (23upgd20.exe, 2.3 MB)
Revised Mar 3, 2024, see Bugs and Versions 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 2.0
from Google Drive!
Or, click the link below and go to pCloud where there is one file listed. Click 'Direct download' and the job's done. If a pop-up appears asking you to register just click the 'X' at the top-right of the pop-up (or register if you want to).
Download Upgrade Version 2.0
from pCloud!
After downloading, just double-click 23upgd20.exe to install. A shortcut to run the program will appear on your Start Menu, your Desktop and in the folder where the program was installed. Your data files are 23tables.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 this is this year's first install and you used Taxman in the past, go to 'Tools\Data Transfer' on the menu and press 'Get Basics from past year' to update 23tables.mdb with the unlikely to change stuff in 22tables.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).
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Otherwise you must get the full program, the El Gordo version:
Taxman2023 Full Version 2.0 (23full20.exe, 7.5 MB)
Revised Mar 3, 2024, see Bugs and Versions 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 Full Version 2.0
from Google Drive!
Or, click the link below and go to pCloud where there is one file listed. Click 'Direct download' and the job's done. If a pop-up appears asking you to register just click the 'X' at the top-right of the pop-up (or register if you want to).
Download Full Version 2.0
from pCloud!
After downloading, double-click 23full20.exe to install. The first time you install Taxman, if asked, do not replace any newer files that you already have on your computer. Only replace files if Taxman fails to work. Save the file 23full20.exe, it may not always be on the internet. A shortcut to run the program will appear on your Start Menu, your Desktop and in the folder where the program was installed. Your data files are 23tables.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.
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 Notably New for 2023
This year CRA only mailed us paper-filers the forms and not the tax guides. They said that the majority of paper-filers confirmed to them that they "rarely" use the instructions (they're blaming us for this!). But "rarely" isn't zero. You only need to use a guide once to need that guide. CRA's website has the guides listed as "optional" and says they are "not available to order". The federal guide is 30 pages full of definitions and restrictions. I've been doing tax returns for 40 years and I'm always looking things up. It dumbfounds me that anyone can say the instructions are optional. I think CRA is dismissing paper-filers as not worth bothering about.
Yet, if you can get the guides online, what's my problem? Firstly, if the government wants everyone to have an internet connection and be semi-computer literate, they can pay for it. But most importantly, just try finding the guides on CRA's website! If you go to the webpage where all the forms are listed by number and type in "5000-g-23e.pdf" (the federal guide) nothing shows up. CRA has hidden the federal and provincial guides and you have to search for them. Are they out to get us? Or maybe as the $60 million ArriveCan app debacle shows, they're just fumbling along. Regardless, in the next paragraph I explain how to find the guides.
For the federal guide, search CRA's website for "Federal income tax and benefit information for 2023" which hopefully gets you to a webpage with that title. Click the link below the title that says "Download a copy of Federal income tax and benefit information for 2023" and go to that section of the page. The first line in that section has a link which opens up the PDF you want (5000-g-23e.pdf). You can then download that PDF.
For your provincial guide, using ON as an example, search for "Ontario tax information for 2023". Click the link below the title that says "Download a copy of Ontario tax information for 2023" and continue on as above. This time it will be 5006-pc-23e.pdf that you're downloading.
T777S, working at home due to COVID is gone. The rest of the big changes are stabs at trying to solve the housing crisis. I doubt that tax incentives or disincentives will somehow make homes affordable. But if the government continues to let the healthcare system deteriorate, that could work. If more baby boomers die while on a waiting list, it'll save a fortune and it'll get rid of the boomers sooner. With the right amount of determination, in 15 years the boomers will be gone and then there'll be plenty of homes and doctors to go around. And best of all there'll be a whole new crop of tyrants and saviors to strut around. Good times ahead — I'll be glad I'm dead.
New! Schedule 12, MHRTC: a multigenerational home renovation tax credit, which will get you $7,500 with $50,000 spent on building a secondary unit for a qualifying relation. Sounds good but there is a problem. A secondary unit is defined as a self-contained housing unit and being self-contained means it's not part of your principal residence. Therefore, you would have to pay tax on any capital gain when you sell the place. And there's bound to be a capital gain because inflation alone will raise the value of your home. So, is the $7,500 worth it? Or maybe you'd be better off doing everything you can to make sure what you build doesn't look like a self-contained unit.
New! Schedule 15, FHSA: where you enter first home savings account activities. An FHSA is like an RRSP but directed at buying or building a home. No doubt a good idea but, considering how high house prices are, you're going to need money from the Bank of Mom and Dad to get enough for a down payment.
Schedule 3, capital gains, now has a property flipping declaration. If you sell a house owned less than 365 days, unless you can claim one of nine "life events", you have to use the business forms and pay tax on the full amount of the gain (losses don't count). If owned 365 days or more it's a capital gain so only half the gain is taxable, and you can call it your principal residence, thereby dodging taxes altogether.
BC has a refundable renter's credit of $400 if family income is under $60,000.
ON lost three credits: Staycation, Jobs training and Seniors' home safety.
SK lost the home renovation credit.
Someone wondered why, when you opened up the Envelope, you were bound to what's on Persons and you couldn't change the name and address to whatever you like. Now you can.
The capital cost allowance section of the Business, Rental and Farming forms looks the same but the underlying math has changed. In one column it went from A-B+C-D to just A-D. CCA changed in 2022 to handle an immediate write-off of certain assets and it looks like CRA didn't quite have it figured out the first-time round. But they found the error and changed things, and deserve to be congratulated. And the fact that the mighty CRA can screw up should hopefully make its staff a little bit humbler and more willing to cut a poor taxpayer some slack.
 Bugs and Versions
- Version 1.0 was released Jan 28, 2024, and revised on Feb 28. Problems addressed were: the "No. of months" control in the BC Renter's credit had an incorrect status bar message; on Worksheet you would jump from the EI section to FHSA activities because the tab order was wrong. I also redesigned the section for T4s at the top of Worksheet to match CRA's new T4s, if you read the T4 from left to right.
- Version 2.0 was released Mar 3, 2024, and now below "Balance owing" it says your due date is April 30, 2024, not 2023.
A US Congressional probe found that for years "Big Tax Prep has recklessly been sharing tens of millions of taxpayers’ sensitive personal and financial data" with Big Tech firms. Colour me surprised! Along with concluding that Big Tax Prep can't be trusted, the report stated: "This potentially illegal misuse of taxpayer data should be immediately investigated ... and liable actors should be duly prosecuted."
What were these corporate bigwigs thinking? Even a bozo like me knows that passing taxpayer info to Meta, without consent, has to be breaking taxpayer privacy laws. If CRA wants us to file online, they'll have to give us a free, deluxe, online tax program with a secure portal. This would crush Big Tax Prep and, hopefully, put me out to pasture.
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