Taxes for Treeplanters - You & the Canada Revenue Agency

[E.E]

I spent an hour on the phone with CRA and they told me my best option was to speak with the small business professionals. The establishment of a permanent residence is required to claim moving expenses so they told me moving to a tent meant I was not allowed to make this claim, even if I spent 264 days living in said tent.

The agent told me I could still make the claim then argue the move with the person who would be auditing my return. The cost of losing

The entire argument the professional I spoke with used is bolded below. She says If I planned on returning to my old residence I would not qualify for moving expenses.

You must establish your new home as the place where you ordinarily reside. For example, you have established a new home if you have sold or rented (or advertised for sale or rent) your old home.

Here is the T1M moving expenses claim form.

http://www.cra-arc.gc.ca/E/pbg/tf/t1-m/t1-m-13e.pdf

1st offence: free pass
2nd offence: $100 and 50% of the understand tax/overstated credits related to false statement

Losing an audit means you need to repay the amount credited to you when you get your tax money back at 1% per month compounded monthly (~12.7% a year).

This whole thing is over my head and I've never actually made this claim. I'm being told by the agent to just make the claim, and risk the audit since I am only afraid of the moving expenses line. Sadly the agent could not tell me what steps I could take that would make my claim more legitimate. Getting your employer to write you a letter saying they didn't reimburse you for moving expenses may be requested from you.

They will likely send you a letter asking for information relating to the move. If this information is not accepted then the agents will begin the reassessment of your tax return. Then they will charge you all the taxes you were supposed to pay plus interest. They will then read out the riot act saying do this exact same thing again and you will be hit with escalating fines.

Thanks for suffering through that...

[SwampDonkey]

The government is great for not telling you anything useful and entrapping you to break the law. If they cannot tell you what is the right way about it, then how the hell is it going to stand in court when you tell the judge that they can't tell you what is right?

[Sowsun]

Sorry to bump an old thread.

My company gives me both RWA and T2200.

Can anybody confirm for me that claiming both would lead to me owing money in the event of the audit? I guess calling CRA would be the best move here.

I've had colleagues tell me they claim both. They've also never been audited.

[twitch]

I believe you're only supposed to claim one or the other, not both.

[The Rev]

If you are getting RWA, then you can't claim expenses thru T2200 form - One or the other

[Sowsun]

Appreciate the replies, but can somebody show me where the CRA states this explicitly?

[SwampDonkey]

If you've ever used something like Turbotax, that is one of the questions they ask you. "Did your employer re-emburse any of your expenses for work?" How would you think you would be allowed to get re-embursed and then make a claim on your tax return for more?

[bluejay]

CRA can't say anything explicitly. You'll need a tax professional to
Do your taxes for you if you want to make the claims without any risk.

When I spoke with them they told me to just give it a shot. Worst you get for a deceptive submission is a review. If the agent determines you were purposefully trying to screw the stem you will get a single free pass. You can also be considered by the same agent during your audit to have overclaimed your expenses when he strikes out those that do not qualify. You will need to pay taxes plus interest on those expenses as they will be requalified for earnings.

Short answer, give it a shot, just don't try and bullshit. Keep all of your receipts and correspondence.

[WMWMW]

Hi all.

I've got a quick question. I just did my first season of planting last summer, and my T4 arrived a few days ago. I remember while planting several people mentioned that you could claim 2/3rds of camp costs somehow. I think there was a name of some form you needed to fill out, but I can't remember the name. I did get a "Declaration of Conditions of Employment" form along with my t4 where there were some boxes checked for things such as "Did this employees contract require him to play his expenses while carrying out the duties of employment?". Clearly this form goes along with that 2/3rds camp cost claim I heard about, but whats the name of the form itself?

Thanks.

[ohsnap]

I don't know the part about claiming camp costs, but you can claim your moving expenses if you had to travel from your home to the job.

Say you live in Quebec, but took a job in BC, if you kept all your receipts from gas, hotel, food, etc., then you'd get some of those travel expenses back.

That form is a T2200, but you can't claim moving expenses if you used the RWA option (remote worksite allowance). For whatever reason, the two don't work together. I think Scooter talked about that in one of the threads, I can't remember which tho.

If you're talking about something else, and someone remembers the name, I'd like to know. I'm curious.

[Scooter]

I just combined five different topics about taxes, RWA, and deducting employment expenses into this one giant topic. So if the conversation seems to occasionally lack a bit of "flow," or if questions come up that were brought up earlier in the topic, that's why. But at least all the different discussions are in one place. You can probably tell which topic each post originated in by the title of the post.

[Aeryk]

Here I am again.....I feel like I end up here every year this time and never really leave feeling any more sure how to do any of this

[Scooter]

And to confuse things even more, I got audited on my T2200 this year and they told me that it was useless. But I'm appealing that, because a different department within the CRA were the ones that told us that it was valid.

[dkarvas]

In case people were looking for this:

The 2015 guide for employment expenses
http://www.cra-arc.gc.ca/E/pub/tg/t4044/t4044-15e.pdf

I would also encourage everyone to use simpletax.ca, it's free and is by far the easiest way to do your own taxes.

[Scooter]

I was just reviewing some RWA information for someone, and I came up with some of the same answers as earlier in the thread. Namely, that if you don't maintain a separate "home" residence elsewhere, which is available for your own use and not rented or sublet to other people while you're away, you can't qualify for RWA or Special Worksite Allowance. And even if you do maintain such a residence, there are a number of other ways that you can be disqualified from being eligible for RWA.

More info on Special Worksite Allowance:
http://www.cra-arc.gc.ca/tx/bsnss/tpcs/ ... u-eng.html

More info on Remote Worksite:
http://www.cra-arc.gc.ca/tx/bsnss/tpcs/ ... t-eng.html

Interestingly, and I haven't seen this mentioned before, it appears that a Remote Worksite must be 80 kilometers or more from the nearest community with a population of at least 1,000 people. So right there, that would disqualify any planter who is working out of a motel in a town, no matter how far your regular home may be from that town.

There will also be differences for people working out of motels, and for people working out of planting camps where food and lodging is "provided." If you're in a tent that you bought for yourself, I believe that the definition of lodging being "provided" for you is still met in the sense that the "camp facility where you sleep" is provided for you, and food is provided for you in that location, even though you pay for such food and lodging (in the form of camp costs).

Short version: A lot of planters don't appear to qualify for RWA, for a number of different reasons.

[mariareese]

According to form t777 meals are only calculated at 50%.. 50% is fair enough I think ..

[TheRedHandle]

So my understanding is that we need to get a T2200 from our employers and then fill out a t777 in our taxes with our camp costs and day off food costs and hotels. Does everyone at least agree on that much? Can we put gear on there too? Does anyone know how moving expenses work?

Scooter do you know more stuff about this now since you've been going through an audit in the last couple years right?

[Scooter]

My case may have been unique, because I was a supervisor. Also, when I got audited on the T2200, I was told that nothing at all was eligible as expenses (even though a different CRA branch told our company to do it that way), and the audit fell at a bad time of year ... all my receipts were on the wrong side of the country, in storage, and I wouldn't be able to get at them until after the "deadline" that they gave me to appeal. I believe that I could have still appealed almost a year later, but at that point, I was so frustrated that I didn't even want to bother talking to them. Last year, I didn't bother saving receipts. Probably for the better ... I didn't have a reminder six months later of just how much I spent on cookies and ice cream.

Moving expenses shouldn't be an issue. The main criteria is that you can only claim the expenses in each direction that ends up in income after the move. So for example, if you're in university in Halifax and go out to BC to plant for the summer, those expenses can be deducted because you have income that exceeds the expenses (presumably). On the way back home, if you have a part-time job while at school, you can probably claim the expenses coming back, because your income from your part-time job may exceed the amount of those expenses. However, if you're in school without a part-time job, you can't claim the expenses for the move back, because the move wasn't made to generate income. Moving expenses are explained pretty well on the CRA website, while the information about T2200's and RWA often seems to differ depending on which CRA employee you're talking to.

[Scooter]

My case may have been unique, because I was a supervisor. Also, when I got audited on the T2200, I was told that nothing at all was eligible as expenses (even though a different CRA branch told our company to do it that way), and the audit fell at a bad time of year ... all my receipts were on the wrong side of the country, in storage, and I wouldn't be able to get at them until after the "deadline" that they gave me to appeal. I believe that I could have still appealed almost a year later, but at that point, I was so frustrated that I didn't even want to bother talking to them. Last year, I didn't bother saving receipts. Probably for the better ... I didn't have a reminder six months later of just how much I spent on cookies and ice cream.

Moving expenses shouldn't be an issue. The main criteria is that you can only claim the expenses in each direction that ends up in income after the move. So for example, if you're in university in Halifax and go out to BC to plant for the summer, those expenses can be deducted because you have income that exceeds the expenses (presumably). On the way back home, if you have a part-time job while at school, you can probably claim the expenses coming back, because your income from your part-time job may exceed the amount of those expenses. However, if you're in school without a part-time job, you can't claim the expenses for the move back, because the move wasn't made to generate income. Moving expenses are explained pretty well on the CRA website, while the information about T2200's and RWA often seems to differ depending on which CRA employee you're talking to.

[Chocolatej]

Based on this you can claim moving expenses to attend university: https://www.canada.ca/en/revenue-agency ... enses.html

I had a hard time claiming moving expenses for planting one year since it required registering for an address change with the CRA, and I didn't go through that process during the season. It's also difficult to register a move with the CRA if you're "moving" to a bush camp with no postal address.

[Scooter]

Based on this you can claim moving expenses to attend university...

That's great. That's something new. This doesn't surprise me, in light of the rumours that university students may now be allowed to claim EI.

[Chocolatej]

Have you claimed moving expenses just for a season before?

I imagine it might be easier for management swing this in terms of registering a new address with the CRA. I don't imagine they would be too impressed if hundreds of planters "moved" to a P.O. box in PG for a few months...

[Scooter]

I always did it in both directions. I always had a job in New Brunswick, so I was able to claim the move to PG in late April, and another back to New Brunswick in late August, and had income at each side to validate the moves. I haven't done that for several years now, since I don't officially have a job in New Brunswick anymore.

[Scooter]

I just added a new page about Taxes to the main site:

www.replant.ca/taxes.html

[_I3^RELATIVISM]

the minimal provience taxable income, should also be considered. for people that mostly only return to canada for summer work. If you are bellow that limit and spread your work through provinces then you shounldnt have much problem with anual taxable income.

[_I3^RELATIVISM]

In case off-course you only subsist of that money the rest of the year that is.

[_I3^RELATIVISM]

Does anyone know if RWA can apply to contractors and not employees? so like a companie getting paid by receipt intead of being a employee has income?

[jdtesluk]

Taxes for a contractor are completely different than for an employee. I'm fairly sure that RWA is a specific program for workers. Probably best to have an accountant working for you on this.

[Cyper]

Jordan is right. RWA only applies to employees. Contractors are ineligible. If you are a planter being paid as a sub-contractor you cannot receive an RWA. You really should be an employee. As far as I know, it's illegal to pay planters as sub-contractors.

[jdtesluk]

For reference, there was a series of ruling back in the 80s in the Federal Tax Court that deemed planters to be employees, due to the level of control that the employer has over their work. Now, it is POSSIBLE for a planter to be a sub, but that would have to come with a certain level of independence from the normal crew-configurations we see in 99% of situations. If a company went ahead and treated planters as subs (inappropriately), the company could end up on the hook paying for all the EI, CPP, and other deductions that SHOULD have been deducted.

Now in the case that a planter is operating legitimately as a sub, maybe taking on a clean-up assignment on their own, with their own truck, and calling their own shots, they could then deduct most of the costs directly associated with this work. This would essentially be operating as a sole proprietor. If earning over $30k as a self-employer person, you are generally obligated to collect and submit GST with a valid GST number (easy peasy to start up and do). Being a sole proprietor is kind of like being a company of one, except you don't have the protections and advantages of an incorporated company and everything is basically under your name. Doing your taxes in such situations requires fastidious attention to receipts, mileage logs, and other details, and a decent accountant is your best friend. In these cases, deductions may include the total gas, repairs, and insurance for your vehicle (based on the percent of km used for work as a percentage of annual totals). Travel costs for work (i.e. ferry motel air) are generally claimable at full value. Meals may be deducted, but only 50% of actual costs and only in circumstances where you have to travel certain distances and times (i.e. overnight). There is a whole listing of what is considered legitimate deductions for the self-employed, and again it is always best to have a learned accountant walk you through. In the meantime, collect every slip of paper. I even hold on to coffee receipts.

Hope that helps