To our clients,
As you may be aware, earlier today the Prime Minister and Minister of Finance announced some additional measures related to supports for individuals and businesses affected by the COVID-19 outbreak.
Of particular note for tax season:
The filing deadline for regular tax returns has been extended to Monday June 1st, 2020.
The filing deadline for Trust returns with December 31st 2019 year-ends has been extended until May 1st, 2020.
Payment of personal income tax amounts owing can be deferred until after August 31st, 2020 for any amounts that become owing on or after March 18th, 2020 and before September 2020. This includes instalments as well. No interest or penalties will accumulate during this period.
Payment of business income tax amounts that become owing on or after March 18th, 2020 and before September 2020 will also have the same flexible deferred payment process.
For businesses, please note that, as of this writing there has not been an indication of any extensions to filing deadlines for HST remittances, payroll remittances or corporate income tax return filing.
If you are an employee and are affected by layoff or work shortage due to COVID-19 there are enhanced EI supports coming online. Additionally, if you are an employer not normally able to qualify for EI, or as an employer are continuing to pay employees who may be off due to COVID-19 related issues, there are subsidies coming online.
Please refer to the following Government of Canada website links for additional and emerging information:
https://www.canada.ca/en/employment-social-development/corporate/notices/coronavirus.html
Changes and announcements seem to be coming every hour. We are doing our best here at Mercer & Mercer to stay abreast of changes that affect our personal and business clients. However, I ask for your patience if we are not able or unable to provide immediate answers to questions you might have.
For the time being we are continuing to operate as close to business as usual as we can – just under the process as laid out in my update yesterday and as posted on the doors to our office. We will be going to 8:00am – 5:00pm (Monday to Thursday) and normal Friday/Saturday hours for the purposes of drop-off and pickups.
On behalf of myself, and everyone here at Mercer & Mercer we sincerely appreciate all of the cooperation and understanding we have received from our clients to this point. Thank you all.
Sincerely,
Blake Mercer and the Mercer and Mercer Team
blake@mercerandmercer.com | 905-876-1144