[Phoebekins]

I have done a small business tax return for a person. She owes money. It has been printed and she has taken it and paid me for doing it. She has not as yet mailed the tax return to CRA.

She has since gone to her bookkeeper to have changes done because she feels she should not be owing any money.

Now her bookkeeper has called me on her behalf and asked if I could redo the tax return with these changes.

I feel that the tax return is complete and that a T1 adjustment is what should be done. Not sure if my thinking is wrong.

Has anyone ever come across this where they have redone a tax return after the fact.

Thanks for any responses I receive.

Phoebekins

[Tim Parris]

I would charge a fee for redoing the return. I would also be looking closely at the changed claims involved and requesting appropriate documentation. Let us face it, you prepared a tax return which had amounts owing and now changes are being applied.

Did you not prepare a working papers file with the original books? Do you still have the ledger, journals and trial balance?

[JohnNP]

Phoebekins, on 06 October 2010 - 04:46 PM, said:

I have done a small business tax return for a person. She owes money. It has been printed and she has taken it and paid me for doing it. She has not as yet mailed the tax return to CRA.

She has since gone to her bookkeeper to have changes done because she feels she should not be owing any money.

Now her bookkeeper has called me on her behalf and asked if I could redo the tax return with these changes.

I feel that the tax return is complete and that a T1 adjustment is what should be done. Not sure if my thinking is wrong.

Has anyone ever come across this where they have redone a tax return after the fact.

Thanks for any responses I receive.

Phoebekins

from what was posted it is not possible to determine whether version 1 or version 2 is the subject of casual error, negligence, misrepresentation or fraud

certainly the minimum is that one of the two versions has elements of misrepresentation or negligence by somebody

the professional accountant in this situation would first determine what tax law applies, and would be required to dissassociate themselves from false/misleading information, check the documentation that the client signed, and take legal advise where appropriate

i see no mention of which accountant was responsible for preparing the financial statements of the (implied) business income?
by definition, a bookkeeper is not qualified to do so, so that would be inappropriate to rely on that

[Jim M]

You probably already have solved this problem anyway, but I thought I would add my 2 cents. As long as the original return has been prepared but not filed you are unable to request an adjustment to that return. It would be better to revise the original return and then file that IMHO provided you have satisfied yourself that the changes are corrections of honest errors and not attempts to evade taxation.