The interactive, more user-friendly version can be used by tax pros at law and accounting firms, executives say
Two companies announced on Tuesday they will develop an interactive and more user-friendly program to deal with recent tax-on-split-income legislation.
Legal technology firm Blue J Legal and combined tax/law advisory Moodys Gartner Tax Law LLP said they are working on a machine learning program to simplify the dense TOSI laws. After working on the product for more than a year, the goal is for the tool to be useful for tax professionals at law and accounting firms, said Kim Moody, CEO and director of Canadian tax advisory at Moodys Gartner Tax Law LLP.
“Collaborating on this feature was an extremely positive process because of our shared goal – TOSI should be universally understood by all, rather than inhibitive,” said Moody.
The tool, called a TOSI navigator, will be a high-tech version of Moodys’ popular Tax integral flowchart, which is widely used in the financial industry. The dynamic version can respond to each particular situation with the relevant prompts to ensure complicated exclusions are not missed, Blue J Legal said.
The TOSI legislation, which came into effect on Jan. 1, 2018, expanded the category of individuals subject to TOSI rules, the statement said. It included children who are over 18 and other related adult individuals who are residents of Canada, as well as added several exclusions.
The TOSI navigator tool, housed on Blue J Legal’s Canadian Tax Foresight platform, also uses guidance from the Canada Revenue Agency.
“The TOSI rules are extraordinarily complex, even compared to the high level of complexity elsewhere in income tax law,” said Benjamin Alarie, CEO and co-founder of Blue J Legal. “The Tax Foresight TOSI solution is unprecedented, and we look forward to helping to eliminate the confusion that surrounds the TOSI rules.”
