Thanks for using this tax return. It is complete and ready for direct submission to Revenue Canada after you enter your data. If you bought a disc, the Rev Canada authorization number is included. (Also on the disc is a DiskDoubler-compressed shareware version which we invite you to circulate as widely as you wish.)
If you got this as shareware from a BBS or user group, please contact Icicle Computer by mail or phone with your payment of $25 ($15 for a renewal) by cheque (preferably!) or Visa, and we’ll be pleased to give you the authorization number.
This 1992 Canada/provincial Tax Return uses about a dozen linked Microsoft® Excel™ 3.0 worksheets, set up to resemble closely the original set of basic personal forms from Revenue Canada - Taxation. Each Schedule exists as a separate linked worksheet. The worksheets take care of the arithmetic, but you need to enter the data. Proceed through the steps in ‘A Tax Worksheet’ first, then the other worksheets. You need to enter any particular item of data, such as a spouse’s net income, only once. The usual Tax Guide and forms from Revenue Canada will help to complete the process.
These forms are approved for submission directly to Revenue Canada - Taxation.
••• To do this return •••
1) Copy the folder, ‘Newfoundland (or other province) Tax ƒ’, to any convenient place in your system. Please don’t change file names.
2) Open ‘1992 Tax’.
3) Enter data in ‘A Tax Worksheet’ first, as it provides basic information to all other worksheets. Pressing the «Tab» or «Enter» key will take you in order through all the data cells in each worksheet. Use standard Excel practices.
4) Save your work as you proceed.
5) Enter data to T1 General and all other relevant Schedules or Forms.
6) When you have entered ALL your data, print your Return. Don’t forget to print T1-KS; see the note below on direct submission.
7) The ‘Tax’ menu helps with printing and viewing the worksheets.
Any item of data needs to be entered only once. Proceed by steps through each schedule which applies to you and you will find a space for all items. Don’t try to force data into locked cells unless you are certain you wish to make a special change. For instance, as you work through the T1 General you will skip over cells which calculate amounts from all the other schedules. Be patient; you’ll get to the schedules and the entries will calculate.
Please note! Don’t neglect to enter your SPOUSE’S (or other SUPPORTING PERSON’S) NET INCOME on ‘A Tax Worksheet’. The number is ESSENTIAL to a lot of calculations and to the BOTTOM LINE. A more or less accurate estimate will yield an equally accurate (or inaccurate) calculation of your tax liability.
If you are doing returns for various members of your family, save a distinct folder for each by duplicating the original and giving the duplicate an appropriate name.
Capital gains demand lots of care to complete confusing forms. Use the Rev Canada Guides!
••• More detail •••
…data entry is easier and appearance of the forms is clearer if you have the Helvetica font in your System. Otherwise the templates use Geneva and become wider than a classic Mac small screen, which leads to disorienting screen movement. (Helvetica also saves space on printed forms and looks better on many printers than Geneva.)
…all of the worksheets are standard Excel 3 files. (Deliberately a bit behind the times for all of us who haven’t promptly accepted Microsoft’s generous upgrade terms! Anyone still using version 2.2 or earlier really should consider an upgrade.)
…all have been ‘protected’ with data entry cells left unlocked for convenience and clarity. Any sheet can be ‘unprotected’ any time by selecting the appropriate command in the ‘Options’ menu. There is no password. Toggle back to ‘protected’ and the automatic moves reappear.
…‘1992 Tax’ is a ‘workspace’ (refer to your Excel manual) which arranges about a dozen linked worksheets in the folder. It should be at the top of the list in an Excel ‘open’ dialogue box. Opening takes a couple of minutes, or more on slower Macs. The workspace setup deliberately omits the ‘tool bar’ and the ‘formula bar’.
…use the Options Workspace menu command to return the tool and formula bars to the window, if you wish.
…all the worksheets should be open simultaneously. Macros which make the ‘Tax’ menu work expect it. (Incidentally, if your Mac is running a flock of extensions, you may encounter errors related to the Mac’s default number of open files, which is 40; this number can be easily increased by using a utility such as Bootman, available on many BBSs.)
…‘A Tax Worksheet’ is right on top after you open the ‘1992 Tax’ workspace. Do it first.
Do the T1 General, then various Schedules and supporting Forms in any order. Be aware that many entries, especially on the T1 General, depend on data input to another form. You can limit the number of worksheets whose windows are in view through the ‘Tax’ menu, described below.
…select the worksheet on which you wish to work under the ‘Window’ menu (or by clicking on it or by the keyboard commands, «Command»-M/ «Command»-«Shift»-M).
…dates should be entered in Excel conventions, eg, “d mmm yy” or “m/d/yy”. The typical proper display is “31 Jan 92”. A date incorrectly entered is the probable source of a burst of #VALUE errors.
…number formats used throughout are variations on Excel standards. Numbers should be entered in a form consistent with the System in your machine, typically “50000.2” or “50,000.20” or “12345” with a US system—the North American English norm.
…the formulæ are set to deal with most common situations. If those don’t include you, then with care they can be changed, deleted, or data entered directly, using standard Excel practices.
…the screen of the T1 General template is split to allow you to see the progress of your refund in a line at the bottom of the window.
…if a list of items is too short for you, carefully ‘insert’ additional rows. If possible, insert in the middle of a list rather than at the top or bottom, in order to ensure that defined ranges remain intact. After inserting, ‘Fill Down’ the row above the insertion to copy formulæ into the new rows. Also, beware of the tax man, who may apply different rates to subsequent occurrences of such things as children and dependants. Check the Guide!
…there are 300+ recalculations for some entries. Speed up data entry (but lose some useful bells and whistles) by opting for manual calculation.
•• The ‘Tax’ menu—
The ‘Tax’ menu speeds printing, it allows you to have on-screen only those forms you want, it offers two short cuts to close all the files, and a final command allows you to remove the ‘Tax’ menu itself.
Setup Printing…
allows you to check settings prior to printing. The default is just to print, without a preview or a check of the page setup (which works (for us, anyway) on LaserWriters, StyleWriters, HP DeskWriters or ImageWriters, at least).
The “Print” command allows you to print a selected bunch of forms. The “Hide/Show” command selects which worksheets to use. Those which are hidden remain; they’re just out of sight. The two commands use similar dialogues, like this:
Obviously, the print dialogue invites you to select forms to print… By default, ALL forms are selected. Changes become defaults when the ‘Tax Macros’ file is saved. The ‘Close & Save All’ command does save the ‘Tax Macros’ file.
‘Show All Forms’ does that, un-hiding forms previously hidden.
‘Close All, No Save’ closes all of the dozen or so files WITHOUT saving. You need to confirm your decision in a dialogue box.
‘Close & Save All’ closes all, but saves everything, after confirmation.
‘Remove Menu’ applies only to this ‘Tax’ menu. Use it and all of these custom commands are gone. (The ‘Macro Run’ command, ‘Set Tax Menu’, is always available to reinstall it.)
••• Other considerations:
• Direct submission of these worksheets printed on an ImageWriter or better (please!) has been approved. The worksheets can be modified to accommodate your particular set-up, as can any Excel worksheet. Beware that extensive changes may invalidate Revenue Canada’s approval of this format for direct submission. “Extensive changes” would affect the page format, page breaks, use much different type faces, or lack an approval number.
• SPOUSE’S INCOME. Please enter the full applicable amount of your spouse’s net income on ‘A Tax Worksheet’. The number is used in a lot of calculations. (Incidentally, this is the only important number which could usefully be ‘linked’ to your spouse’s forms. However, the complication of that simple link between suites of identically-named worksheets is great. Don’t bother. Do it manually.)
• CHILD TAX CREDIT. There is no concise, automatic way for parents to calculate the ‘Child Tax Credit’, which can be claimed by “only the individual eligible for Family Allowances”, but the Family Allowance must be reported by the “higher income spouse”… If your higher income spouse is not eligible to claim the Child Tax Credit, you will need to change the numbers of children at lines 545 and 546 on that spouse’s Schedule 7 to zero. Do the change by selecting the ‘Macro Run’ command, ‘Zero_ChildTaxCr’. On the other hand, a lower income spouse eligible to claim the Child Tax Credit may not have claimed any deductions from income for the children, so the worksheets have no information with which to calculate the correct numbers. In this case, run the ‘Unlock_Children’ macro to enable you to enter the number of children directly to lines 545 and 546 on Schedule 7.
• If yours is a complicated family, check the accuracy of computed entries concerning net income and numbers of children to Schedule 7, T1C(Prov), and T778 - Child Care Expenses.
• MINIMUM TAX may, perhaps, apply to you if your Taxable Income + a number of esoteric items total more than $40,000. “Minimum Tax” flags (text notices) will appear on page 4 of T1 General and on the Ontario T1C forms. If so, you can use an electronic Form T691 which is available for $10 by order from Icicle. Drop that T691 file into your tax worksheet folder (please don’t change its name!) with the usual suite. Open “1992 Tax”, then ‘Macro Run’ 'Tax Macros'!Do_Minimum_Tax. This resets relevant formulæ, and T691 is then ready to use. Calculation and links to T1 General and other forms are automatic, and T691 is integrated into your workspace, and with the Tax menu for printing and saving.
ALTERNATIVELY, if the “Minimum Tax” FLAGS appear, they can be REMOVED and Minimum Tax ignored by selecting the ‘Macro Run’ command, ‘'Tax Macros'!Clear_Min_Flag’.
• If you need to complete supplementary reports, such as business or rental income statements, you can do those reports separately and enter the final figures as data. Or, you can set up the statement as an Excel worksheet and link it to the appropriate cells in these templates.
••• We will be pleased to answer questions about the workings of these templates, phone (613)523-0328. On tax law and loopholes we are NOT experts, so please refer the subtleties of your own situation to your own accountant/bookkeeper/significant other!•••
••• Direct Submission •••
To submit your return directly to Revenue Canada - Taxation, print the T1 Return and the supporting Schedules you need to submit on 8 1/2" x 11" 16 lb. bond paper. You can print double-sided returns on 20 lb. paper. This year, Rev Canada has said it will accept all of the forms printed on white paper (instead of light blue). Don’t forget to print Form ‘T1-KS’. (Note that if you have had to complete some of the more esoteric forms, such as T2222 or T2038(IND), you will need to enter the data manually in the appropriate spaces on T1-KS.)
Rev Canada may reject computer-printed returns for processing
- if the paper quality does not meet its basic weight standards;
- if print quality is illegible;
- if the return is not in the correct format;
- if the return does not show an approval number.
(If you bought this package from Icicle directly, the number is already included at the bottom of the T1 General return. If you downloaded the shareware package from a BBS or the like, you can get the approval from Icicle upon payment of the shareware fee, $25 (or $15 renewal). We accept Visa by phone.
••• Disclaimer •••
This template is distributed with the understanding that, while every reasonable care has been taken to ensure its accuracy, the author cannot be held responsible for any omissions or errors. Because tax returns are personal and relate to individual circumstances, the author cannot be liable for losses or risks with respect to the use of this general template. This template should not be used as a substitute for professional advice, and any questions should be directed to a professional adviser.
