CRA Changes for 2020

The CRA has made some changes for 2020, in light of the special circumstances during the COVID 19 pandemic

COVID-19 federal and provincial benefits

These appear on a T4A slip in boxes 197 to 204 and are reported on line 13000 as taxable income.

The Canada Recovery Benefit (T4A box 202) is subject to a social benefits repayment (line 23500) when net income exceeds $38,000

Home Office Expenses

As announced by CRA recently, employees who had to work from home may be eligible to claim home office expenses using Form T777S, either the simplified method or a detailed method which will require them to obtain Form T2200S from their employer. Please see our article on this topic at Employee Home Office Expense Claim – Focused Tax Strategies Ltd

Digital news subscription expenses

This is a new non-refundable amount where up to $500 can be claimed for subscriptions to digital news services with qualified Canadian journalism organizations.

This can be claimed at line 31350 by entering the details of the subscription payments on the Credits worksheet.

Canada training credit

Schedule 11 now includes a section for establishing the claim of this credit which is then claimed on line 45350.

This new section interacts with the 2020 Canada training credit and 2021 limit worksheet