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Budget 2019 – Don’t spend your new Canada Training Credit just yet

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On March 19, 2019, the federal government tabled its election-year budget. One of the new provisions is a refundable credit called the Canada Training Credit. However, the $250 credit won’t even be available until you file your 2020 income tax return in April of 2021.

Further, if you are born in 1995 or later, you won’t qualify yet. If you were born in 1954 or earlier, you would never be eligible.

In addition, the maximum benefit you can receive is $5,000 in a lifetime (which will take 20 years to get at $250 a year) and the benefit can only be used to a maximum of 50% of eligible tuition costs.

So let’s consider the following scenario:

It is 2019 – you are 25 years of age making $27,000 a year and file your taxes every year.

You decide to take advantage of this credit and enroll in your first semester of schooling in the fall of 2023.
According to Statistics Canada, the average Canadian undergraduate pays $3,419 per semester.

So, you take time off work to go to school full-time in the fall, thus reducing your income by 1/3 in the year to $18,000.

Under the current 2019 rules, you would only have $39 in federal income tax. This amount is low because the tuition credits reduce your taxes.

By 2023, you have built up a “pool” of $250 per year after you turned 26, and believe you have a $1,000 pool available for that year.

When you file your 2023 return the $1,000 is triggered as a refundable tax credit. But you won’t be getting $961 back ($1,000 – 39).

Here’s the catch:

The $1,000 pool reduces the amount you can claim for tuition credits as well, which changes the tax owing to $189 Federal income tax. Meaning the $1,000 pool that you waited for is reduced by 15% by the time you pay it out.

Cash in jeans: $811.

But what if the course you decided to go into begins in January of 2023? You go for the January-April semester, work from May-August, and attend school September-December.

Using the same $27,000 – your income is now reduced by 2/3 while attending full time. Your income is only $9,000 as a result of the May-August period.

Your tuition (possibly paid through student loans) is $6,838 for the year.

Your tax is now zero because even before tuition credits you are below the Basic Personal Amount in your earnings.

Does this mean you get the full $1,000?

No.

Because your income is less than $10,000 in 2023, you don’t get the $250 for that year. As such, you only get $750, and your tuition credits available for carryforward are reduced by $750 as well, thus having a future negative impact on tax of $112.50.

Net result: $637.50 cash in jeans

What if you are a parent that decides to stay home with the kids until they are in school full time and go back to school in 2023?
Unfortunately, because you did not make more than $10,000 a year in any of the years, you get zero.

What if you were laid off, collecting regular EI benefits, and decide to go back to school?
Regular EI Benefits don’t qualify for the $10,000 income calculation. As a result, unless you had special EI benefits like parental leave or earned income from another source greater than $10,000, you don’t qualify.

What if you were self-employed through a small business corporation and paid yourself dividends instead of wages and then decided to upgrade your training?
Your dividend income does not qualify, and so you are not eligible for amounts to be added to the pool.

So assuming you qualify, and you wait the four years to build up a pool of $1,000 (remember that the $1,000 is only a net $850 because of the reduction in tuition credits). That same Statistics Canada report says that tuition is increasing at 3.3% per year. That means by you waiting four years so you can get the Net $850 means your annual tuition has likely increased from $6,838 to $7,786 ($948).

You waited four years, and the tax amount you receive won’t even cover the inflationary price increase on tuition.

In Conclusion

  • Those that do qualify won’t see anything until April 2021; the actual net amount of what they will see is only $212.50; and their annual tuition will likely have increased by $225.65.
  • Students under the age of 25 will see nothing;
  • People over the age of 25 that don’t have more than $10,000 of income will see nothing;
  • Seniors will see nothing;
  • Parents looking to re-enter the workforce will see nothing; and
  • People who have been laid off and have less than $10,000 of non-EI income will see nothing.

Seems like a lot of complex legislation for nothing.


Cory G. Litzenberger, CPA, CMA, CFP, C.Mgr is the President & Founder of CGL Strategic Business & Tax Advisors; you can find out more about Cory’s biography at http://www.CGLtax.ca/Litzenberger-Cory.html

CEO | Director CGL Tax Professional Corporation With the Income Tax Act always by his side on his smart-phone, Cory has taken tax-nerd to a whole other level. His background in strategic planning, tax-efficient corporate reorganizations, business management, and financial planning bring a well-rounded approach to assist private corporations and their owners increase their wealth through the strategies that work best for them. An entrepreneur himself, Cory started CGL with the idea that he wanted to help clients adapt to the ever-changing tax and economic environment and increase their wealth through optimizing the use of tax legislation coupled with strategic business planning and financial analysis. His relaxed blue-collar approach in a traditionally white-collar industry can raise a few eyebrows, but in his own words: “People don’t pay me for my looks. My modeling career ended at birth.” More info: https://CGLtax.ca/Litzenberger-Cory.html

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Censorship Industrial Complex

Former residential school student refutes ‘genocide’ claims, recalls positive experience

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From LifeSiteNews

By Clare Marie Merkowsky

An Indigenous whistleblower condemned the media-driven narrative about ‘mass’ graves at residential schools that led to church burnings across Canada.

An Indigenous whistleblower shared his positive experience at a Residential school, debunking the claim that the schools abused and murdered their students.

In an April 5 interview with Rebel News reporter Drea Humphrey, a Kamloops Band member and former Kamloops Indian Residential School student revealed that there was no”genocide” at the schools and many students benefited from the institution.

“A lot of the students were happy to be there,” the Band member, whose identity was kept anonymous, said. “They were away from abusive families, dysfunctional families, alcoholism. So, they were happy to be there.”

The former student revealed that he was treated well during his time at the residential schools in the 1970s. He also described the priests and nuns who ran the school as good people, referring to Father Noonan, the principal at the time, as “a real nice guy.”

Residential schools, while run by both the Catholic Church and other Christian churches, were mandated and set up by the federal government and ran from the late 19th century until the last school closed in 1996.

While some children did tragically die at the once-mandatory boarding schools, evidence has revealed that many of the children passed away as a result of unsanitary conditions due to underfunding by the federal government, not the Catholic Church.

As a consequence, since 2021, when the mainstream media ran with inflammatory and dubious claims that hundreds of children were buried and disregarded by Catholic priests and nuns who ran some of the schools, over 100 churches have been burned or vandalized across Canada in seeming retribution.

However, to date, there have been no mass graves discovered at any residential schools across Canada.

The Band member revealed that the Kamloops Band knows they “made a mistake” in labeling the ground anomalies as “unmarked graves.”

Therefore, if there were mass graves at that location, they would have been discovered in the 1990s, not in 2021.

The Band member revealed that he does not believe a “genocide” took place at residential schools, while condemning the church burnings across Canada.

“When I was growing up religion and church meant community and family,” he explained. “It seems like the Liberals want to destroy family so the way to do that is to attack religion.”

“Attacking religion was a good excuse to burn the churches,” he said.

Regardless of his testimony and the lack of evidence to support the claim, mainstream media outlets perpetuate the “mass graves” narrative and even threaten to punish those who oppose it. In November, CBC subtly suggested that “residential school denialism” should be criminalized.

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2025 Federal Election

Mark Carney vows to provide sterilizing puberty blockers to children ‘without exception’

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From LifeSiteNews

By Clare Marie Merkowsky

Transgender surgeries and drugs have been linked to permanent physical and psychological damage, including cardiovascular diseases, loss of bone density, cancer, strokes and blood clots, infertility, and suicidality.

Prime Minister Mark Carney has promised to continue the Liberal legacy of pushing sterilizing puberty blockers on children “without exception.”

During an April 8 press conference in Alberta, Carney doubled down on his dedication to furthering the LGBT agenda by committing to protect the so-called “fundamental right” to irreversible drugs and surgeries for gender-confused Canadians.

“Access to health care is a fundamental right,” Carney told reporters about 28 minutes into the presser.

Media questioned if he would include LGBT “rights” under the Canada Health Act considering recently passed Alberta legislation which prevents minors from taking irreversible puberty blockers or undergoing gender “reassignment” surgeries.

Carney repeated that he would defend the “fundamental right” to accessing “gender-transitioning” drugs and surgeries “without exception.”

“Canada is a mosaic, people can be who they are, they can love who they love… Access to health care in Canada is not a business, it is a fundamental right, and we will defend it for all Canadians, without exception,” he said.

LifeSiteNews has compiled a list of medical professions and experts who warn against “transgender” surgeries, warning of irreversible changes and lifelong side effects.

In fact, in addition to asserting a false reality that one’s sex can be changed, transgender surgeries and drugs have been linked to permanent physical and psychological damage, including cardiovascular diseases, loss of bone density, cancer, strokes and blood clots, infertility, and suicidality.

There is also overwhelming evidence that those who undergo “gender transitioning” are more likely to commit suicide than those who are not given irreversible surgery. A Swedish study found that those who underwent “gender reassignment” surgery ended up with a 19.2 times greater risk of suicide.

During his first week in office, Carney directed a total of $2,118,000 to LGBT groups in Ontario and Quebec to address “systemic barriers to equality” and to “challenge discrimination in all its forms.”

Furthermore, Carney’s eldest daughter, Sasha, identifies as non-binary and went to the U.K.’s infamous Tavistock gender clinic. The 24-year-old Yale graduate is now a writer who has publicly advocated for transgender procedures.

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