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Path: utzoo!sq!msb
From: msb@sq.com (Mark Brader)
Date: Tue, 28-Mar-89 20:25:19 EST
Message-ID: <1989Mar28.202519.26411@sq.com>
Newsgroups: can.general
Subject: Re: Bank obnoxiousness, tax woes
References: <145@sickkids.UUCP>
Reply-To: msb@sq.com (Mark Brader)
Distribution: can
Organization: SoftQuad Inc., Toronto


> Both Royal Bank and Toronto Dominion Bank have a policy of not sending
> out a T5 for accounts which earned less than $100 in the previous year.

I suspect that this practice is a holdover from the olden days (i.e., 
until last year) when the first $1,000 of interest or similar types of
so-called income was exempt from income tax.  The logic was that if you
were earning less than $100 on any one account then most likely you didn't
have $1,000 of total interest to report anyway, and if some people were
dishonest enough not to report such small amounts when they did have
more than the $1,000, well, it wasn't such a major loss to the government.

I don't think that that "most likely" assumption is all that valid, actually
-- I have had several different years when I was a counterexample, mostly
because of having several bank accounts -- and I do think that if all int-
erest is going to be taxed then T5's should certainly be sent for all of it.

I don't agree that all interest is income or should be taxable, but that's
no topic for this newsgroup, and I decline to start that debate.


Mark Brader				"'Taxpayer' includes any person
SoftQuad Inc., Toronto			whether or not liable to pay tax."
utzoo!sq!msb, msb@sq.com		-- Income Tax Act of Canada, s.248(1)