Practical tax training for Canada & the United States
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Beginner to practitioner · Canada

Canada Tax Returns

Over twenty hours of video instruction covering the Canadian personal tax return end to end, updated for the 2025 T1 season, and taught by a CPA, CGA with more than twenty years in practice and thousands of returns filed. Introduction to Corporate Tax follows the personal material, so you leave able to handle the two return types a small practice actually sees.

20h
of video instruction
2
practical cases & interviews
2
graded checkpoints
20
verifiable CPD hours

How the course is taught

Everything here is built around one idea: you learn tax by preparing returns, not by reading about them. The instruction comes from a CPA, CGA with over twenty years in practice and thousands of completed returns behind them, so the examples are the situations that actually walk through the door — not the tidy ones invented for a textbook. Lessons are short and self-contained. Work straight through if you are starting from nothing, or go directly to the topic a client has just landed on your desk and come back to it whenever you need reminding. You set the pace; there is no cohort to keep up with and no window to miss. The material is updated every year to track changes in legislation and in the forms themselves, and every update is included for as long as you hold the course. That is what keeps it useful after the tax year it was recorded in.

Twenty per cent of the law covers eighty per cent of the returns

Canadian tax legislation is genuinely large, and that size is what puts most people off ever starting. It is also misleading. The overwhelming majority of Canadians have a straightforward tax situation. Employment income, a few slips, some credits, perhaps a rental property or a side business. Learn the part of the Act that governs those and you can prepare the great majority of returns you will ever be handed — confidently, and without guessing. This course is organised around that reality. It spends its time on what comes up, in the order it comes up, and tells you plainly when a situation has passed the point where you should be taking it on alone.

Who this course is for

CPA and business students

If you are working towards the CPA designation, this fills the gap between what you are examined on and what you will be asked to do in your first week at a firm. The theory you are studying is not wrong, it is just not yet usable. This course makes it usable. You arrive able to pick up a set of T1 files and work them without supervision, which is exactly the thing that gets noticed by the managers and partners around you.

Accountants moving into tax practice

If you already practise and you are considering adding tax preparation — or moving into it entirely — this is a structured refresher and a working reference in one. It is written by practising accountants for practising accountants, so it does not spend your time on ground you already hold. It gets you to the point of taking on personal returns for clients, and it tells you honestly where the limits of an introductory course are.

Bookkeepers

You already have your hands on your clients' numbers all year. You are usually the first to know when something has changed. What you may not have is your own T1 capability — which means year-end work, and the conversations that go with it, leave your hands. This course gives you the option: prepare those returns yourself, or at minimum hold your own with the accountant who does, and know precisely what is being decided and why.

What's inside

Module order and gating are set by the instructor and can change as the course is updated.

Part 1

Introduction to Personal Tax

01VideoThe Canadian tax system and the T1 return2h 10m

How the Canadian system fits together and where the return sits inside it: who has to file, the filing and payment deadlines, what a Notice of Assessment is telling you, and what to do when a Notice of Reassessment arrives instead. Then the return itself — the T1 jacket, the schedules that hang off it, and the slips that feed it. By the end of this part no form or slip should be able to surprise you, and the material is refreshed each year to cover anything new the CRA introduces.

02VideoEmployment income and employment expenses2h 05m

The T2200 Declaration of Conditions of Employment and the T777 Statement of Employment Expenses, in full. Reading and completing a T2200, and the test an employee has to meet before any employment expense is deductible at all. Completing the T777 line by line. Which expenses genuinely qualify and under what conditions — home office, vehicle, supplies — so that you claim everything available without putting through the claims the CRA will simply disallow.

03VideoInvestment income1h 20m

Reporting interest and dividends correctly, the gross-up and dividend tax credit mechanism, and which investment expenses are deductible against that income. Includes the compliance points that most often go wrong on an otherwise clean return.

04VideoCapital gains and losses1h 35m

Establishing cost and adjusted cost base, reporting dispositions, and carrying capital losses forward and back. Includes working out the cost base of mutual fund holdings, which is where most of the real difficulty in this area actually sits.

05VideoSale of a principal residence1h 05m

Calculating and claiming the Principal Residence Exemption, which properties qualify and which do not, and the reporting that is now mandatory on every disposition. The CRA reviews these claims, so this part is about being able to support the one you file.

06VideoRental income and deductions2h 15m

Reporting rental income in its various forms — a portion of a principal residence, a second property, a vacation property let for part of the year. Which expenses reduce that income, from mortgage interest and property taxes through to maintenance and repairs. Completing the T776 Statement of Real Estate Rentals section by section. Capital Cost Allowance on a rental property: how to calculate it, when to claim it, and the consequence of having claimed it when the property is eventually sold. Finally, handling several properties at once without losing the thread.

07VideoAllowable deductions1h 30m

RRSP contributions, moving expenses, child care and the rest of the deductions that reduce taxable income before credits are applied. Covers the qualifying conditions for each, and the deductions most commonly left unclaimed simply because nobody asked the client the right question.

08VideoPersonal tax credits1h 40m

Spousal and dependant credits, the tuition credit and its transfers and carry-forwards, the medical expense credit and its threshold, and the remaining credits worth knowing. Includes which credits transfer between family members and how to allocate them so the household pays the least tax overall.

09VideoForeign income and foreign asset reporting1h 15m

The T1135 Foreign Income Verification Statement, the reporting thresholds, and claiming foreign tax credits so income is not taxed twice. The penalties in this area are severe and apply even where no tax is owing, which is exactly why it is covered rather than skipped.

10VideoBusiness and professional income2h 30m

What counts as business income and how to report it — sales, services and everything else the client has been paid for. Deductible business expenses across the range, from supplies and wages through to marketing and travel. The records required to support them, and how to get a client organised enough to produce those records. Completing the T2125 Statement of Business or Professional Activities. Distinguishing capital expenditure from current expenditure and claiming CCA on business assets. Handling a loss year, and carrying that loss back or forward. Closing with the mistakes that most reliably attract CRA attention.

11QuizPersonal tax — graded assessment45m

A graded assessment across the whole of the personal tax material. Sat in Safe Exam Browser, with a pass mark of 80%.

12AI ClientPractical case — a full T1 from a shoebox1h 30m

A complete personal return prepared from an unsorted set of slips and receipts, in real tax software. No indication of which parts of the course apply — that judgement is the exercise.

Part 2

Introduction to Corporate Tax

13VideoThe corporate return: T2 and the small business deduction2h 00m

How a corporation is taxed and why it changes the advice you give. The T2 return and its main schedules, active business income, the small business deduction, and the associated-corporation rules that quietly take it away.

14VideoSalary, dividends and integration1h 30m

Paying an owner-manager: salary against dividends, how integration is supposed to work, and where it does not. The reasoning behind a remuneration recommendation, so you can defend the one you make.

15QuizCorporate tax — graded assessment30m

A graded assessment on the corporate material. Sat in Safe Exam Browser, with a pass mark of 80%.

16AI ClientClient interview — agentic AI simulation45m

A live intake interview with an AI client who answers only what you ask, forgets things, and occasionally contradicts themselves. You gather the facts, identify what is missing, and prepare on what you obtained.

Frequently asked questions

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$399 CADSave $170 CAD
$229 CAD
Shown in Canadian dollars — this course is not priced separately for your region.
All sales taxes included.
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NO PAYMENT ONLINE · REVIEWED BY AN INSTRUCTOR
Intake
Enroll any time — the course is self-paced and starts the day you are approved.
Over 20 hours of video instruction
Every annual update, at no further cost
Graded quizzes after each part
Practical cases in real tax software
Live tutor sessions, in person or by Zoom
Certificate of completion
Graded work runs inside Safe Exam Browser. You install it once from a config file sent at enrollment. Hands-on labs use Intuit ProFile.
4 GATED MODULES · CANADA CURRICULUM