General Income Tax and Benefit Guide

When you receive your income tax package, it includes forms and schedules and also a guide. The guide explains what should be entered on the numbered lines in the T1 General. It goes through the form line by line, so if you don't know what to put on a line, you can look up that line in the guide to see if there's an explanation there. The guide provided by CCRA also contains tax tips. These are found throughout the guide in paragraphs printed with a grey background

For example, if you usually make a few donations every year, it might be worth not reporting them this year. Instead, you could add them to next year's donations and claim both amounts. You can claim 16% of the first $200 you donate, but you can claim 29% of anything over $200. If you donated $200 each year, and claimed it each year, you would get $32 credit this year and $32 next year - $64 in total. If you waited till next year to claim the credit, you would claim $400 in donations. You would still get $32 for the first $200, but you would get $58 for the next $200 (29% of $200). This would allow you to claim $90 as a tax credit instead of $64. You can actually keep your donations for up to five years and then report them.

Our simplified guide doesn't give tax tips, but it does give explanations of what you should put on some of the lines.

Turn to page 2 of your simplified T1 General. Find the first line in the Total Income section that tells you to "see the guide." This is line 121. Follow the instructions and see what your simplified guide has to tell you about line 121. It tells you that if you have earned interest on your money, you should put an amount here. It also tells you that you must fill out Schedule 4 to see how much to write here.

Schedule 4 is one of the forms included in your income tax package from CCRA. It isn't too hard to fill it out. You will probably only need to fill out one line - Interest and other investment income. On this line, it tells you to go to line 121 in the guide. The guide tells you to enter any interest you have earned on your money on line 121 of your return. If you aren't sure exactly what to do, you can always ask one of CCRA's trained volunteers for help.

The items on the first page of our simplified guide go with the T1 form. The rest of them are there to help you to fill out Schedule 1. Take your simplified T1 and Schedule 1. With a hi-liter or coloured pen, mark the lines on the forms that have an explanation in the guide.

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