GGFL is now offering Audit Shield, a service designed to give fee protection to clients whose tax returns result in an audit, or other follow-up inquiry, from the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) and provincial tax authorities.
Audit Shield covers unexpected professional costs for:
- Corporate tax filings
- Personal tax filings
- GST/HST filings
- Employer compliance audits
- Business audits
- Any query where action is required from the client.
The service is provided by the Accountancy Insurance company, which has partnerships with more than 3,000 accounting firms in Canada, Australia, and New Zealand.
Audit Shield is an optional service that protects clients against added expense in an era of increasing diligence on the part of CRA and other government agencies.
“The number of audits, or requests for information seem to be increasing,” says GGFL Managing Partner Josh Engel. “Clients often need our assistance in responding to those requests, and obviously there are fees involved for our time. Audit Shield can provide our clients peace of mind in knowing that if a request comes their way, they won’t have to worry about extra professional fees.
“Businesses in their early stages often have more expenses than revenues,” adds Josh. “When they claim a refund for sales tax, it’s very common for the government to say, ‘before we give you this refund, we have a whole lot of questions.’ Business owners are already challenged enough getting their businesses going without having to spend time responding to CRA to get a refund that’s owed to them.”
Nor are all follow-up inquiries from CRA triggered by a specific business, or individual activity.
“Sometimes the government undertakes a project that impacts all accounting firms,” explains Josh. “For example, across the accounting community, a good portion of clients were getting requests to provide support for amounts recorded as professional fees in their corporations in the 2016 and 2017 tax years. It came out of nowhere. So, it isn’t necessarily an individual’s activity that attracts attention. Sometimes government decides to take the initiative and looks at certain specific types of transactions across the board.”
Audit Shield premiums are based on the revenue a business generates and are tax deductible for business owners. The service is also available for individuals.
