Ontario Trillium Benefit

3 posts / 0 new

Sat, 2012-02-18 00:27

altereco

Tax Refund? Wait for it.

The new Ontario Trillium Benefit program has delivered a major shock to anyone who is relying on their usual Income Tax refund to finance some specific debt, such as students, low income, March break, etc. You can re-do your tax form to your heart’s delight but you won’t have any idea where your refund money has disappeared to. Revenue Canada can’t help you either but to refer you to their provincial counterpart, and even they can’t explain how you will ever find out even when you start receiving this benefit in July sometime. I know this, I called.

Good luck with this and I hope your creditors will be compassionate.

Regions:

Thu, 2012-02-23 17:38

Kinetix

This is different than your "regular" tax refunds. Your primary tax refund from the federal government comes after you file your taxes, and you should know how much it will be as it's on your filing papers. If you or your tax preparer submit using netfile, you should receive your refund within two weeks of filing. I uploaded mine last Wednesday and have already received confirmation of processing and know exactly how much and when my deposit will be made.

The other benefit- the new provincial trillium benefit- is a consolidation of three existing benefits:

Northern Ontario Energy Credit
Ontario Energy and Property Tax Credit
Ontario Sales Tax Credit

Typically, each of these payments would be made seperately on a quarterly basis. Your old payment schedule will remain exactly the same, until July, when they will be lumped together and paid out on a monthly basis with a stable, predictable monthly amount.

The Ontario Revenue Agency set up a good web page at http://www.rev.gov.on.ca/en/credit/otb/index.html which explains everything and shows the old and new schedule. I'm looking forward to the new set up. It's far better than the old unpredictable and disjointed system.

Sat, 2012-02-25 14:35

Freedom 55

Kinetix wrote:

It's far better than the old unpredictable and disjointed system.

You're probably right, but I sort of liked the infrequent lump payments. They always made me feel like I could afford to splurge on 'luxuries' like shoes or pants.