Tax Prep Forms

How to complete Tax Prep forms

To request the preparation of your client's tax return by our Tax Team, we'll need you to complete some preparatory forms. These forms will assist the Tax Team in gathering the necessary information. In this video, we show you how to navigate to find the prep forms. 

Lets learn how to get to the Tax Prep Forms:

Step 1. Go to the Optimize Portal and click on Documents  

Step 2. Select Servicing documents 

Step 3. In the 3 tabs, you are able to filter to Prep-Form 

The Documents that are available to download are:

• Personal Information 
• Business or Professional Income
• Home Office Expense
• Commissioned Employee Expense 
• Real Estate Rental

How to Complete the Personal Information Form

We'll review the Personal Information Prep Form with you first, as it's crucial to complete. Once downloaded, you will start to fill out the form.

Step 1. Enter the client's name and Tax year.  

Step 2. Enter some basic personal information on the client, such as their elections information, subscription expenses, etc.. 

Step 3. Next, we’ll enter their marital status at the end of the tax year, and their spouse’s name, date of birth, net income, and ownership of any joint accounts. If your client isn’t married, you can leave the spouse fields blank.

Step 4. If they have children, enter the name, social insurance number, and date of birth of each child, as well as a few other questions, which may qualify the client for additional tax credits. Furthermore, below the "Children Information" you will see "Dependent Information" with the same boxes. Enter the information if you have any eligible dependents. 

Step 5. Next, you'll be asked to provide amounts for expenses related to eligible tax deductions, such as medical expenses, charitable donations, or any carrying chargers or interest expenses paid on non-registered investment accounts. 

Step 6. For client's with young children, you can enter any child care expenses which they may have paid in the tax year to earn an income, attend school, or conduct research. Just enter the name of the child it was paid for, the organization it was paid to, and the amount paid.  

Step 7. For client's who own their own home, enter the address of their principal residence, how much in property taxes they paid, and the municipality they paid the taxes to. If they rent, enter their address, the rent they paid, and either the municipality that the property belongs to or their landlords name. 

Step 8. Some client's may pay annual union or professional dues to their profession's governing body. If they were paid out of pocket, and aren't listed on their T4, enter the name of the company or association which they paid dues to, and the amount they paid. (If their dues are listed on their T4, just leave this section blank. 

Step 9. Here, you can provide purchase and sale details for any clients who bought or sold their principal residence during the tax year. For client's who took advantage of their first-time home buyer plan, be sure to indicate that here, and provide the amount they redeemed from their RSP, and the date of redemption. 

Step 10. If a client paid or received spousal support, enter that here. 

Step 11. If the client has any Tax instalments paid make sure to add the amount. Next if the client paid interests on loans for post-secondary education purposes fill in the boxes with the appropriate detail.

Step 12.  We’ll need to know if the client held any foreign property, where the aggregate value of that property exceeded $100,000 at any point in the tax year. Check the box yes or no. 

If the maximum value of the foreign property was greater than $100,000, but
less than $250,000 at any point during the year, you can aggregate the individual
components to provide the following information.

Step 13. If at any point during the year the value was greater than $250,000, you’ll need to list each component separately.

The Personal Information Prep Form gathers the bulk of the information needed for us to prepare your clients’ tax returns, and in some instances, may be all we need to process the request.

For more complex tax situations, such as clients whom own rental properties, or are self-employed, we’ve provided supplementary Prep Forms, so that our tax team can maximize client refunds or minimize their tax liability.

All supplementary tax prep forms are accessible in the “Documents” section of the Optimize Portal (Documents→ Servicing documents → Prep forms), and are available to download as fillable PDFs.