In the past we have talked about the importance of having the right tax preparer do you taxes. We also spoke about the CRA’s new action plan called the Registration of Tax Preparers Program (RTPP).
Some thought that this was just going to be an empty gesture on the CRA’s part and not a program that would materialize or be significant. It seems though, that the Government is moving ahead with this as part of their action plan.
With an effort in listening by those who this will be most important to which are the tax payers themselves, targeting the small business entity, the CRA is conducting consultation meetings across the country. The doors of communication appear to be really opening up. You can even have your say online in respect to this matter no matter what your involvement is.
We all tend to complain about taxes in general and most of us feel that nobody ever listens. Now is your opportunity to speak up either by attending these consultations or commenting online. It may be easy to adopt the attitude that you are only one tax payer so your opinion doesn’t count. However, when many similar opinions are gathered collectively they have the potential to be powerful. Hopefully once all the comments and input from the taxpayers has been gathered it will be made public. This way you will be able to compare the input to the final actions of the CRA to see if the consultations were a successful attempt at getting a workable RTPP in place.
The Registration of Tax Preparers Program is part of the three point action plan that the government is introducing to help close the gap between the CRA and the tax payer which in turn reduces red tape. It would seem that the tax officials feel that by having a better understanding of the tax preparers that this is going to be beneficial. It seems that the government feels that a lot of issues with tax problems concerning small business lies around the errors that are made. By getting a better system set up with the tax preparers they are hoping to eliminate a lot of this.
It really is important that as many tax payers as possible become involved in these consultations. By doing so it sends a clear message to the CRA that a lot of the tax payers have had enough of sitting back and taking whatever is thrown at them. They are now prepared to become pro active in their tax concerns.
