Page 3 of the T1 General

On page 3 of the T1 General form, you work out what your net income for the year was, and then what your taxable income is.

Do you remember what these two types of income are? If not, look back to the box at the end of Activity 2 (a).

At the top of page 3 of our Simplified form, it says this is where you attach all the schedules, information slips, forms, receipts and other documents that you need to include with your return. If you have done as we suggested in Activity 1, you will have all of these pieces of paper in a folder called Income Tax. This saves you a lot of time and frustration when you start to do your taxes. If you have everything together that you need, filling in the T1 General is pretty straightforward.

Net income
The top half of the page is where you work out what your net income was. The first thing you have to fill in on page 3 is your total income. You will have worked this out on page 2. It goes on line 150 there, so all you have to do is to copy it from line 150 on page 2 to line 150 on page 3. It might seem a bit confusing to have line 150 on page 2 and on page 3, but it makes sense. Your total income is always on line 150, no matter which page it's on.

You remember that your net income is your total income minus some allowable deductions. Some of these deductions are ones that can be made if you are working and have expenses like child care or if you have moved to take up a job. In the real T1 General there are more than 20 lines you can fill in. In our simplified form, we have given you about half this number.

Look at the net income section on page 3 of our simplified T1 General. Could you claim any of these deductions? If you could, which lines are they on? ________________
Circle these line numbers on the form.

If you had no deductions to take from your total income, your net income will be the same as your total income. The total of your deductions here will be zero.

Taxable income
The second part of this page is where you calculate your taxable income. At the bottom of the page, it tells you that you use your taxable income to calculate your federal income tax on Schedule 1. You also use this amount to work out your provincial tax on form ON428.

If you are working and are in an upgrading program, you probably won't claim any deductions here. This is why we didn't put many lines on our simplified form. Most of the deductions are to do with capital gains and losses and similar high finance things. On the other hand, if you are receiving social assistance payments such as Ontario Works, or qualify as a Northern resident, you will have something to fill in on line 250 or line 255.

If you reported social assistance payments on line 145, then you enter this same amount on line 250 here.

If you work in northern Canada, you may be able to claim a deduction on line 255. You can get a list of places that qualify for this from CCRA. You can also call the Info-tax service of T.I.P.S. for more information about deductions for northern residents. To claim this deduction, you will have to fill in form T2222.

The amount that's left when you deduct all the payments you are entitled to is your taxable income. This goes on line 260. If this amount is zero, you have no taxable income so you pay no tax.

Now turn to page 4 of our simplified T1 General.