Harmonized Sales Tax – Ontario and British Columbia (BC)
It is expected that starting July 1, 2010, Ontario's Retail Sales Tax (RST) and BC's Provincial Sales Tax (PST) will be replaced by a harmonized, value-added sales tax combined with the federal GST. This change will affect a large number of small businesses.
Simply Accounting helps businesses to be HST compliant
If you are one of the businesses that have purchased or upgraded to Simply Accounting 2010 (Release B), our December 2009 release, your accounting system will help you switch to the new Ontario or BC HST.
In Simply Accounting 2010 (Release B), after the default date of the company is moved to June 1st, 2010 or later, an option is provided to automatically add a new HST tax and an HST tax code. The tax and tax code can be added then or postponed until later. In addition, instead of spending hours of work updating customers and suppliers one-by-one with new default tax codes, customers or suppliers can now be selected as a group and then updated with a new default tax code.
These three elements, automatically adding the tax and tax code, and a new method to update customer and supplier default tax codes, will save Simply Accounting clients in Ontario and BC from hours of frustration in converting to the new Harmonized Sales Tax before July 2010.
Upcoming change in Canadian GAAP to International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) in 2011
Simply Accounting meets most IFRS requirements. (The exception is the reporting of comprehensive income.) Simply Accounting meets the Canadian standards for private enterprises as these standards have not changed. The appropriate Canadian standards for not-for-profit organizations are still under consideration. Sage is committed to ensuring that Simply Accounting complies with accounting standards as they are revised. More details will be available in the coming months.
T5018 Information Slips – Updated Electronic Filing Requirements
The Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) has updated their requirements for electronic filing of T5018 information slips. A one year grace period has been provided, and no penalties will be applied for filing T5018 information slips on paper under the previous limits in 2010. The capability to meet the new requirements for electronic filing of T5018 information slips is being considered for the Simply 2011 version.