PERSONAL TAX

MEDICAL EXPENSE
Canada Customs and Revenue Agency (CCRA) note that the Income Tax Act permits a medical expense for tutoring services that are supplementary to the primary education of the patient who has a learning disability, or a medical impairment, and has been certified as such. Also, the payment must be made to a person ordi-narily engaged in the business of providing such services.
MOVING EXPENSES
In a Tax Court case, Mr. G moved from Victoria to Courtenay, British Columbia on June 22, 1998 to take up new employment. However, he could not sell his house in Victoria until December, 1998. The Court permitted moving expenses from Victoria to Courtenay, as well as $2,572 of costs in-curred in 1998 maintaining his house in Victoria while he lived in Courtenay await-ing the sale of the Victoria house.
MOVING EXPENSES - FREQUENT FLYER POINTS
In a Tax Court case, the Court disallowed as a moving expense, air travel taken with frequent flyer points. The Income Tax Act permits a deduction for "amounts paid". The appellant failed to prove the actual amount of "travel costs" relating to the airline seat except that she testified that she flew that day. Also, meals and accommo-dation costs were dismissed because re-ceipts were not provided.

HOME OFFICE AND TRAVEL EXPENSES
In a Technical Interpretation, CCRA notes that where 40% of the employment duties are carried out in the home office, the taxpayer would not be entitled to deduct home office expenses because the Income Tax Act requires the individual to princi-pally (generally considered to be 50%) perform the duties of employment from the home office.

However, where more than 50% of the duties are performed in the home, the tax-payer may be eligible for home office ex-penses if there is a contract of employment requiring the taxpayer to provide the home office although, this may be satisfied even without a written contract where it is tacitly understood by the employer and the em-ployee that the home office is required to fulfil the duties of employment.

However, where the employee is required to regularly and habitually attend staff or other meetings at a main office, travel between those locations may be viewed as personal in nature. The regularity of the reporting and the nature of the duties carried on at this location are more important than the fact that an employee may only report to the work location once or twice a month.

PAYROLL DEDUCTIONS On October 23, 2000, CCRA introduced RC4163 (Employers' Guide to Remitting Payroll Deductions in 2001) which notes that:

1. Regular remitters must pay payroll deductions by the fifteenth day of the month following the deductions. Also, if the remittance was due on, say, Janu-ary 15, 2001, they will be considered late if they are paid with the T4 Return after January 15. Late penalties will be subject to a 10% or 20% penalty de-pending on whether it is a first, or sub-sequent failure.
   However, small employers have the option of remitting source deductions quarterly if they have an average an-nual monthly withholding amount of less than $1,000 in either the first or second preceding calendar year and, have a perfect compliance history in the previous twelve months and, have no outstanding GST/HST Returns or T4 Information Returns.
2. If the employer has an average monthly withholding amount of CPP, EI and tax of $15,000 to $49,999 in the second preceding calendar year, the amounts deducted in the first 15 days are due by the 25th of the month and the amounts withheld from the 16th to the end of the month are due by the 10th of the following month.
3. If the average monthly withholding amounts are $50,000 or more in the second preceding calendar year, the amounts must be remitted by the 3rd working day after the end of the fol-lowing periods, from the first to the seventh, from the eighth to the four-teenth, from the fifteenth to the twenty-first, and from the twenty-second to the last day of the month.
   All remittances of associated corpora-tions are considered in applying these thresholds.

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