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Taxman 2024
Version 1.0 is Ready!
Schedule 3, capital gains, is done. Everything changed, yet nothing changed.
Instead of waiting until the end of the year, Trudeau and friends introduced a higher inclusion rate for capital gains over $250,000. This forced CRA to divide capital gains into two periods, before and after the change. They had six months to adjust all the forms, and yet they couldn't do it. So they backed out at the last minute and the inclusion rate stays the same. But plenty of damage has been done.
I'm not blaming CRA, income tax is a maze of tangled rules and schedules. Throughout everything capital gains are ubiquitous because they are a special kind of income, demanding special treatment. Just changing the inclusion rate alone would cause a hundred dominoes to fall. But doubling things up with a whole new type of capital gain, with its own rate and rules, proved a bridge too far.
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Politicians have no idea what's required to make their great ideas come true. There are adults I know who will tell you they come up with great ideas all the time. Yet when it comes to making two cups of tea, they don't expend any energy trying to calculate how much water is required. They just fill the kettle to the brim. Not a care in the world!
So this year we have the futile task of dividing capital gains into two periods and then adding them back together. It took me a week to make that happen with Schedule 3. And next year it will take me another week to get rid of it. A perfect allegory for my miserable existence.
There will be a Version 2.0 because more forms are being released that reflect the capital gain change. Which usually means the numbers stay the same, but the forms will look different.
I found a problem with the Taxman 2023 program if you are from Red Deer: see Bugs and Version History for more.
(I have an essay this year too ...)
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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 (if not, go back to any past year and download the full program), then you only need:
 Taxman2024 Upgrade Version 1.0 (24upgd10.exe, 2.3 MB)
Revised Feb 15, 2025, 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 1.0
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 1.0
from pCloud!
After downloading, just double-click 24upgd10.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 24tables.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 24tables.mdb with the unlikely to change stuff in 23tables.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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 New for 2024
As mentioned above, Schedule 3 has changed. Capital gains are now sorted by date.
It used to take, for anyone in the country, half a sheet of paper to figure out their CPP. Now there are three different versions of Schedule 8, totalling 37 pages. They could have just raised the CPP rate if they wanted more money. Instead they created three levels each with their own rates. So now we have to worry about each level being underpaid or overpaid. It took me three weeks to update the program with this year's changes to CPP. Sorry to whine, I should be used to the fact that our government doesn't do simple.
For the program user, Schedule 8 works the same as before. This means, if you are not making a special election and you're not from QC, you don't have to look at Schedule 8 so long as you fill in the Worksheet.
CRA is now being used as a bludgeon to solve our housing crisis. They are no longer allowing any expenses to be deducted on non-compliant short-term rentals. Supposedly the income still has to be declared, but nothing comes off that figure. The rental guide isn't out yet, so I don't know what "non-compliant" means, or how CRA plans to track you down.
BC joins the club of provinces that have checkboxes to allow CRA to give your contact information to a shadowy outfit called BC Transplant. They insist that John Cleese is not going to come for your liver, but of course they'd say that. They're only going to email you so it doesn't matter if you tick Yes or No, if you haven't given CRA your email address. And you shouldn't give them your email address — if CRA wants to come after you, make them mail you a piece of paper.
 Bugs and Version History
- The Taxman2023 instructions for the climate action incentive payment mistakenly included "Red Deer" which, according to CRA's rules, is not a census metropolitan area (CMA). If you are from Red Deer you should have checked the check-box. CRA stopped using the 2021 census and went back to the 2016 census, when Red Deer wasn't a CMA. This gives the good folks in Red Deer a few more climate action bucks, to help them cope with their rural isolation. And we shouldn't consider everybody in Red Deer a crook, freeloading off the rest of us. Admittedly, Red Deer has been a CMA since 2021 and they have a Walmart, so it's not like they're suffering too badly. But yet they are stuck in the middle of Alberta. I'll leave it up to you to pass judgement.
It's not very polite for Canadians to be booing the Star Spangled Banner at every hockey game. At the Super Bowl both Trump and Taylor Swift were booed by the crowd. Americans are not all bad.
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