Paperwork, complexity challenge taxpayers

Is your client part of the 40% of Canadians who have yet to file their taxes?

Read: Help young clients become tax-savvy

A study by H&R Block reveals that two out of five Canadians (40%) still must file their 2016 taxes. Most Canadians (55%) consider themselves in-betweeners, who file a couple of weeks before the deadline. Procrastinators (23%) file at the last second, and eager beavers (19%) file well in advance.

Canadians tend to drag their feet when it comes to filing because they:

• have yet to organize the necessary paperwork (34%),
• have a habit of filing the last week (18%),
• have yet to receive the necessary paperwork (17%) and
• don’t have time (11%).

While a quarter of Canadians surveyed say they get excited about filing and receiving a hefty refund, most have negative feelings. That negativity stems from the perception that tax prep is complicated (21%), inconvenient (19%) or anxiety-provoking (11%).

Read: UPDATED CE course: Personal tax season — Are you ready?

Despite taxes being low on many Canadians’ to-do lists, 86% plan to file before the May 1 deadline (April 30 is a Sunday this year).

(The self-employed and their spouses or common-law partners have until June 15, 2017, to file, but any balance owing is due on or before April 30, 2017.)

CRA provides information on checking the status of refunds, making payments and changing returns here.

About the survey: From April 7 to April 9, 2017, an online survey was conducted among 1,509 randomly selected Canadian adults who are Angus Reid Forum panellists. The margin of error, which measures sampling variability, is +/- 2.5%, 19 times out of 20. The results have been statistically weighted according to education, age, gender and region (and, in Quebec, language) Census data to ensure a sample representative of the entire adult population of Canada. Discrepancies in or between totals are due to rounding.

Also read:

Everything you need to know about fee deductibility

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Staff

The staff of Advisor.ca have been covering news for financial advisors since 1998.