Automated Corporate Tax Checklist And Notes & Queries with Library And Reporting Letter (Does Not Include Logic Checklists Nor Property Plant and Equipment Schedule)

More information is available at www.macdonald.ca. The most recent version of this checklist is available at http://www.macdonald.ca/checklist/tax.doc General Questions can be answered by e-mail to .

This manual is currently being revised as more features have been added at the request of customers. Most of the new features are explained here; however, some editing and esthetical changes are expected.

This Corporate Tax Checklist is general in nature and designed to assist practitioners and their staff with tax matters in a corporate tax engagement. This corporate checklist does not replace knowledge, experience or continued reference and guidance provided by The Income Tax Act and generally accepted publications such as CCH Preparing Corporate Tax Returns, Ernst & Young Line-by-Line Guide to Preparing 2005 Corporate Tax Returns and attending professional development courses.

This corporate tax checklist is one item of an integral part of the entire client information

and working paper file. Other relevant income tax considerations are likely to elsewhere, e.g. permanent file, knowledge of client forms, tax return software, etc.

Practitioners are encouraged to revise, amend, and/or expand this corporate tax checklist to suit their respective requirements. However, often, firms and experts request assistance in doing so.

Track changes has been left on in this document and users of this manual are encouraged to revise, amend and/or expand this manual. Although suggestions are appreciated, they may or may not be incorporated into the manual and acknowledgement for any revisions will be solely at the discretion of Joseph Macdonald.

Disclaimer

This sample checklist was prepared by the Joseph Macdonald, BCom, CA with the assistance of several tax, general and quality assurance practitioners. It is not meant to be a complete or comprehensive reference nor does it provide a substitute for professional accounting knowledge of income tax legislation. Joseph Macdonald nor any other person involved in the preparation of this sample checklist accept any contractual, tortious or other forms of liability for its contents or for any consequences arising from its use.


This manual is organized as follows:

1) Automated Corporate Tax Checklist

a) Checklist - general information

b) Editor Mode Selection (not needed for most users) *

c) Editor Mode(not needed for most users) *

2) Notes & Queries with Library

a) Notes & Queries - general information

b) Preparer View
c) Notes & Queries Library (not needed for most users) *
d) Categorize Checklist Questions (not needed for most users) *


3) Reporting Letter

Readers should be aware that extensive too tips exist in the software. If you hover your mouse over any given field, you should see instructions on how to complete the field.

* We recommend that regular (i.e. most staff and management not read this section.)

Automated Corporate Tax Checklist

1) Checklist

a) General Information
This section of the manual is organized in the same manner as the checklist screen, reading it from top left to bottom right. When using the checklist, if you hover your mouse over an icon or input box, a yellow box called a tool tip briefly appears. The tool tip explains the purpose of the icon or input field. If a hand appears over the icon or input field, it means a mouse click will activate a feature, such as jumping to a relevant screen. Also, many columns are not needed for every engagement; as such most of the columns can be hidden and/or not printed by simply closing or opening the folder under the column heading. You close or open the folder simply by clicking on it. When you hide some columns, the “Questions & Comments” column may become wider, allowing more questions to be shown on the screen and/or printed on a page.


Standard CaseView hot keys (keyboard shortcuts) such as “Jump” [F5] and “Find” [(Ctrl)+(F)] and “Issues” [Right Click] work in the checklist.

Your editor has chosen from a screen which looks like this which columns on the checklist is shown. Note, it is unlikely the editor has decided to show each of the columns and as such your checklist will not have all of the items from # to Policy shown.


Initially the screen may look like this:
Skipped Text Icon The “Skipped Text Icon” on the CaseView Toolbar (it is the blue S under the magnifying glass beside the gold key) allows you to hide or unhide skipped text. The Checklist uses this icon to show all questions or only relevant questions. Some users like to see all questions even though they know they can skip the questions in blue, others prefer to see only the relevant questions.

If you click the Skipped Text Icon your screen would change to this.

Open Book Icon The “Open Book Icon” at the top left corner of the screen is a link to the latest version of this manual accessible via the internet.. The “Open Book Icon” in the body of the checklist, if displayed, indicates that an imbedded word search for the tax library exists.

Preparer Input Box & Reviewer Input Box Double click on the grey “Preparer” input box or the yellow “Reviewer” input box to sign off on the checklist. Usually all that is needed is to click on the checkbox beside role and the initials and date are recorded based on the system defaults.

Primary Reporting Letter Input Box AND

Location of Notes & Queries AND

Checklist If you wish to jump between the checklist and related reporting letter and related Notes & Queries document, input the CaseWare document number here or browse and select the document. Once set up, you can double click on the boxes to jump either of the other two related documents without losing your place in the original document.

Abridged Version for Low Risk Engagements Checkbox Every checklist is able to accommodate two versions; a standard version and an abridged version. If you want to use the abridged version, leave a tick mark in the box, otherwise leave it blank. You can switch between versions at anytime without losing any of your work from either version. If you answer a question in the standard version and switch to the abridged version, the question is added to the abridged version unless the user removes the answer.

Maximized Freeze/Minimized Freeze Users can resize the screen to show or not show all the above options. A miminized screen with the low risk engagements box could look like this:

Condition Box


The condition box has several choices which allow the checklist to be filtered in a number of ways.

Follow-up dropdown box Show questions marked for follow-up by Client, Partner, Manager, or Supervisor by browsing and selecting an option. With CaseWare 2004 or later, some people may wish to manage issues by using the “Issues” feature in CaseWare.

Initials or Checklist editor password The user’s CaseWare identity will automatically appear here. As the questions are answered, the identified information is automatically stored with each question. If you over-ride the field, CaseView’s standard red over-ride dot appears in the field. If you know the editor’s password, and you wish to edit the checklist, input the editor password and different options will appear. The editor can change the editor password at any time.

Unanswered & Questions with Comments Checkbox If you wish to see only relevant unanswered questions and questions with comments leave a checkmark here. This feature is helpful when reviewing the checklist and also to help preparers focus only on remaining steps to be completed.

Unexpected Answers & Questions with Comments Checkbox The checklist editor has identified likely answers to each question. If you wish to see where your answers are different than what the editor expected and/or questions with comments leave a tick mark here. This feature is helpful when reviewing the checklist.

Show / Print Complete Checklist Checkbox If you want to see or print the entire Checklist except for omitted columns, leave a checkmark here.

Column Selection Box The only column which can not be suppressed is the Questions / Comments column. Only the editor has the ability to edit or insert questions. All users have the ability to input comments for any and all questions. Comments are carried forward when a CaseWare year end close is done.

Warning a question is not expected to be answered _!_
Whenever the answer to a question is changed, it is possible other questions are no longer relevant and these questions can be anywhere else on the checklist. Inorder to help the preparer and the reviewer identify these questions the questions are marked with marked with _!_ and an exclamation mark (!) is put at the beginning of the question. An example of how this works is as follows.
Initially the preparer believes that there are transactions with non-residents however, the client is a resident of Canada and hence the following screen.


Subsequently a the reviewer or the preparer determines that there are not in fact any transactions with non-residents and changes the Yes answer to a No answer. This results in the next question being no longer relevant.

If question 7.01 above is unchecked it disappears as follows.


*** Only people intending on creating or changing an existing checklist need to read further. ***


*** Only people intending on creating or changing an existing checklist need to read further. ***
b) Editor Mode Selection

The checklist comes with the editor password set to “editor”. Anyone who knows the password can enter the editor mode and also can change the editor password which is case sensitive.

Note: two additional rows are available when the editor mode is used.

Maximum Unique ID Length 10 It can be changed by the editor. It should be at least 2 and no more than 200, however, we recommend it not be changed.

Show and Print Expand Conditions Check Box If this box is checked, then the Editor Password row shows up and the user enters into edit mode. Note: the editor password is always visible when this box is checked. Tthis allows the user to change the password more easily..

Editor Password The Editor Password is case sensitive and does not have a validation check when changed. If it is forgotten, it can only be recovered by Joseph Macdonald. However, if you customize the checklist for your office, you may wish to prevent changes by changing the password to prevent unauthorized changes.

c) Editor Mode


Only editor has the ability control the display and/or printing by clicking open or shut the folder for the relevant folder.

# Question number in the Checklist (Sub questions do not have question numbers. Most people choose to leave this closed and have the # be part of the Question/Comments column.

Yes Input in this column is cleared on when CaseWare year end close is done.

No Input in this column is cleared on when CaseWare year end close is done.

NA Input in this column is cleared on when CaseWare year end close is done.

WP ref Each question can be linked to a CaseWare or CaseView document in the file by browsing for it or inputting the CaseWare Document Number. Double clicking on the field allows the users to drill down to the document.

Blue Column A Checkmark shows if Role 1 signed off on document referred to in WP ref column.

Red Column A Checkmark shows if Role 2 signed off on document referred to in WP ref column.

Green Column A Checkmark shows if Role 3 signed off on document referred to in WP ref column.

Purple Column A Checkmark shows if Role 4 signed off on document referred to in WP ref column.

F/UP By Questions can be noted for follow-up by Client, Partner, Manager, or Supervisor by browsing and selecting an option. With CaseWare 2004, some people may wish to manage issues by using the new “Issues” feature in CaseWare 2004. See above section on filtering the Checklist.

? When this field is blank, the question has been answered as expected by the checklist editor; when “*” appears the question is answered differently than expected by the editor; and when a “?” appears, it reminds the user the question is not answered. See above section on filtering the checklist.

By When a question is answered the contents of the Initials or Checklist editor password referred to above are automatically input in this column. You can over-ride the automatic input. No over-ride dot appears when input is changed.

Open Book icon Indicates that an imbedded word search for electronic library exists. If your library is properly linked, clicking on the icon does a word search in the library relating to the question. Only the editor can create or amend word searches. If no icon appears, the editor has not prepared a word search or deleted an existing one.

WWW icon Indicates that reference material is linked to the question by the editor. Linked reference material can be anywhere on the network on the internet and can be any type of file.

Word Search The editor has the ability to store word searches with each question. These searches can be used by copying and pasting the words into a search tool.

Linked File This field is used for documents not linked to CaseWare, only to CaseView. Double click to drill down to the file.