Catherine Hyde, Paralegal
It’s tax time and hopefully you have filed your tax return. You obtained copies of your T4s, T5s, receipts for medical or children’s expenses, business or rental income information. You provided these to your accountant or perhaps prepared your own tax return, and once done, received the Notice of Assessment confirming that you did your taxes correctly.
Preparing your taxes and preparing a financial statement in a separation case are similar. In both instances you must gather together your supporting documents to prove any credits or deductions that you are entitled to within specific timelines. An effective and cost saving measure is to create a filing system. This is not a doomsday philosophy in the event you do separate later, but rather it is simply a good practice, to assist in preparing your taxes, and to assist in any future needs you may have whether separation or estate planning.
You have essentially two options. Firstly, you can obtain the standard filing cabinet, create paper files for each category including income, bank statements, credit card statements, investment statements, wills, property purchase and sale records, details of inheritances. Alternatively, in this digital age, you can set up an on-line filing cabinet with the same ability to set up folders for each of the categories and scanning the physical documents to each of the digital folders. These records should be maintained on a monthly basis.
A little time now on filing can save you a world of time later. Happy filing!