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Photo : Ground Picture ( Shutterstock ) Last month the IRS reported that millions of eligible people have yet to properly claim their COVID relief payments. The IRS uses tax returns to determine eligibility for both pandemic stimulus checks and child tax credits , and u nfortunately, those who need the relief most—such as people with lower incomes, limited internet access, or who are experiencing homelessness—are often the least likely to have filed their taxes . Here’s what you can do to take action before this week’s deadline for claiming your stimulus and/or child tax credit payments. 02:15 How to Steam an Egg November 9, 2022 02:50 Chopping Basics November 9, 2022 If you didn’t file taxes in 2022 You may not have filed a federal income tax return this part April if your income was below a certain amount. However, you need to file in order to claim any sort of refundable tax credit. You have until Thursday, Nov. 17 to complete a simplified tax return to claim your missin...

BP BP-N is paying more tax as it is making more profit, its U.K. head Louise Kingham told the Reuters Energy Transition Europe 2022 event on Wednesday. “It’s right that (the government) should think about how they protect the most vulnerable and taxation is not for companies to determine,” Kingham said. “I think when companies make more profits, they expect to pay more taxes, and that’s exactly what we are doing,” she added. British finance minister Jeremy Hunt is considering increasing a windfall tax on oil and gas firms and extending it to power generation firms as he tries to find ways to repair the country’s public finances, sources said on Saturday. Hunt is due to announce his new budget plan on Thursday “Taxes that we will pay here in the U.K. will be about two and a half billion dollars, all told, with the (existing) additional levy,” Kingham added, referring to the 25 per cent windfall tax, or Energy Profits Levy, approved by British lawmakers for oil and gas producers in the...

British Finance Minister Jeremy Hunt, in London, on Nov. 17. Alastair Grant/The Associated Press Millions of people across Britain face higher taxes and energy bills after the government on Thursday announced an emergency budget focused on restoring the country’s financial credibility and bolstering an economy battered by soaring inflation. Treasury chief Jeremy Hunt unveiled a £55-billion ($86-billion) package of tax increases and spending cuts designed to demonstrate that Britain is committed to paying its bills after his predecessor spooked financial markets by proposing tax cuts without saying how they would be paid for. Mr. Hunt sought to cushion the blow by pledging to protect the most vulnerable, announcing that he would increase welfare benefits and state pension payments in line with inflation and help low-income residents with their energy bills. The government will also maintain investment in energy and infrastructure projects to boost economic growth, he said. Even so, th...

Britain's Chancellor of the Exchequer Jeremy Hunt, in London, on Nov. 17. TOBY MELVILLE/Reuters Britain’s Conservative government on Friday defended its decision to hike taxes for millions of working people in the “squeezed middle” class as it tries to shore up an economy battered by double-digit inflation and the reckless tax-cutting of recently ousted Prime Minister Liz Truss. An emergency budget announced by Treasury chief Jeremy Hunt on Thursday includes £25-billion ($30-billion) in tax hikes, including higher income tax for middle and top earners and steeper local household taxes. The Treasury acknowledged that the moves will take taxes as a share of national income to its highest level since World War II. The combination of high inflation – predicted to be 9.1 per cent for 2022, largely driven by soaring energy costs from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine – and stagnating salaries means a 7 per cent decline in U.K. living standards over the next two years, according to the Offic...

The cost of commuting is forcing some Ontario residents who moved outside the GTA during the pandemic to reconsider their place of residence as employers call workers back to the office. LARS HAGBERG/THE CANADIAN PRESS The Canadian Press Getting caught up on a week that got away? Here’s your weekly digest of The Globe’s most essential business and investing stories, with insights and analysis from the pros, stock tips, portfolio strategies and more. Is the cost of long work commutes worth it? When remote work took off during the pandemic, housing markets surrounding the Greater Toronto Area became increasingly popular for homebuyers priced out of the region. But as workers are being called back to the office – even just for a few days a week – those who moved out of town are learning that their commutes are increasingly long and expensive. As Salmaan Farooqui reports, one woman who bought a home in Belleville now spends $600 a month to travel to her Toronto-based finance job three ti...

The German government plans to impose a levy to skim off electricity companies’ windfall profits from Dec. 1, 2022, scrapping a previous plan to apply the tax retroactively from September this year, government sources told Reuters. The tax is to expire by the end of April 2024, the sources said, confirming a report published first by Frankfurter Allegemeine Sonntagszeitung newspaper, citing sources. Berlin had originally planned to possibly extend the levy until the end of 2024. The economy ministry was not immediately available for comment. Germany’s traditional and renewable energy lobbies criticized applying the levy retroactively as too bureaucratic and hardly feasible. https://www.tausiinsider.com/german-government-to-impose-electricity-windfall-tax-beginning-dec-1-sources-say/?feed_id=332701&_unique_id=64628cadc5e61

The Liberal government’s proposed tax on stock buybacks is going to be expensive for a number of Canadian companies. Unfortunately, investors can’t be sure of which ones, and by how much. The reason – and I know this will shock you – is that Canadian disclosure requirements for companies’ buyback activity have lagged U.S. rules for nearly 20 years. And the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) would like to expand what companies there reveal, which threatens to widen the information gap with Canada. To review, the government said earlier last month it plans to introduce a 2-per-cent tax on share buybacks starting in 2024. The idea is ripped off from the United States, which in August brought in a 1-per-cent tax on stock buybacks, starting in 2023. A lot of the discussion of the proposal is black-and-white: The Liberal government clearly sees buybacks as a diversion of capital from job-creating investment; business groups have said the buybacks are a legitimate capital-management t...

Poland withdrew its objections to a minimum corporate tax at an EU summit on Thursday, unblocking a whole package of linked agreements that includes €18-billion ($19.16-billion) in financing for Ukraine in 2023, diplomats said. Leaders had been held up on several fronts at the Brussels summit, at the end of a tumultuous year which saw the EU close ranks to support Ukraine after Russia’s invasion but also often struggle to agree how much pressure to put on Moscow. Diplomats said Poland had blindsided EU peers who had not expected its objection to a carefully negotiated package, but Warsaw’s veto had now been dropped. “There is a deal,” one said. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky had earlier addressed leaders by video link and urged them to approve the aid his country needs nearly 10 months into the war. “I am asking you very much to ensure that our struggle for peace for Ukraine and for the whole of Europe does not depend on misunderstandings and controversies between some EU mem...

The rules include a narrow set of exemptions for foreigners to buy residential real estate such as recreational properties and housing with a minimum of four units. ERIC BARADAT/AFP/Getty Images Ottawa has unveiled details on how the two-year ban on foreigners buying homes in Canada will work. But real estate experts do not expect the new law to help Canadians access more housing. The rules were unveiled with less than two weeks before the ban is set to go into effect Jan. 1. They include a narrow set of exemptions for foreigners to buy residential real estate such as recreational properties and housing with a minimum of four units. The law takes effect after this year’s jump in borrowing costs slowed resale activity and triggered the sharpest drop in home prices since the global financial crisis. Many Canadians were already priced out of the market when home values shot up during the pandemic’s real estate boom. Today, many do not qualify for a mortgage given the going five-year int...

The Cobre Panama copper mine in Donoso, Panama. Abraham Teran/The Associated Press Panama says it has no intention of seizing the Cobre Panama mine from First Quantum Minerals Ltd., FM-T despite excoriating the Canadian copper company for allegedly misrepresenting the tenor of their talks. Vancouver-based First Quantum and Panama have toiled for more than a year to try to come up with a new tax and royalties contract for the mine. Talks broke down last month, at which point Panamanian President Laurentino Cortizo ordered the mine to cease operations. Other Canadian miners have seen their assets expropriated after clashing with foreign governments, including Centerra Gold Inc. in 2021. Its flagship Kumtor mine was nationalized by the Kyrgyz Republic. But there appears to be almost no chance of that happening in this case. “At no point has the government considered, or will it consider, expropriating any mine,” Federico Alfaro, Panama’s Minister of Commerce and Industries, said in an i...

The federal government is offering a new tax credit to help make it easier for Canadians to care for adult relatives in their own homes. The multi-generational home renovation tax credit took effect Jan. 1 for expenses related to building a secondary suite for a family member who is a senior or an adult with a disability. The credit will provide a 15 per cent tax refund on expenses of up to $50,000 to a maximum of $7,500. Stress Test podcast: One family’s solution to Canada’s housing crisis The secondary suite must be for a related adult over the age of 65 or living with a disability, including a grandparent, parent, child, grandchild, sibling, aunt, uncle, niece or nephew. The secondary suite must be a self-contained housing unit that includes a separate entrance, bathroom, kitchen and sleeping area. Additionally, the home being renovated must be inhabited or reasonably expected to be inhabited within 12 months after the end of the renovations. Some expenses, such as the purchase of...

Automakers have been experimenting with subscription fees for a range of vehicle amenities and services as a way to generate additional revenue streams. Mike Blake/Reuters When you think of the car of the future, you probably envision an electric-powered vehicle that can parallel park itself or perhaps even drive you to the office. But there’s another, less high-tech shift in the industry that’s already hitting the mass market: subscriptions for your car. In Canada, for example, some General Motors GM-N and Toyota TM-N new models now come with free trials of digital services that include the ability to lock and unlock a vehicle, or start and stop the engine using a smartphone, even from a faraway location. After the introductory period is over, drivers will have to pony up a monthly fee to keep using those features. Automakers around the world have been experimenting with subscriptions for years with mixed results. But as the industry emerges from the pandemic’s supply chain logjams ...

A screen displaying Swiss Federal President Alain Berset during the "Davos Alliance" (conference of ministers of culture) on the sideline of the 52nd annual meeting of the World Economic Forum, WEF, in Davos, Switzerland, on Jan. 15. GIAN EHRENZELLER/The Associated Press Food companies making big profits as inflation has surged should face windfall taxes to help cut global inequality, anti-poverty group Oxfam said Monday as the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting gets under way. That’s one of the ideas in a report by Oxfam International, which has sought for a decade to highlight inequality at the conclave of political and business elites in the Swiss ski resort of Davos. The report, which aims to provoke discussions on panels featuring corporate and government leaders this week, said the world has been beset with simultaneous crises, including climate change, the surging cost of living, Russia’s war in Ukraine and the COVID-19 pandemic, yet the world’s richest have gotte...

The exterior of the Microsoft office in Toronto on Jan. 1. Tijana Martin/Tausi Insider Microsoft Canada MSFT-Q became owned by an Irish affiliate in its 2021 fiscal year, according to documents that offer a rare glimpse at how its multinational parent company has taken advantage of Ireland as a tax haven. Such a structure could drive down the taxes that the Outlook, Word and Excel software giant pays on any profit it generates in Canada, experts say, by letting Microsoft Canada transfer profits to the lower-tax country with techniques such as royalty payments to the Irish parent company. Many jurisdictions, including Canada, put little pressure on large multinationals to disclose the finances of their local subsidiaries. But financial statements recently published by Ireland’s corporate registration office show that a Microsoft Corp. branch called Microsoft Round Island One UC became tax resident there as of Jan. 1, 2021. Inside Amazon’s strategy to shield its profits from Canadian t...