New tax reporting requirements for bare trusts ‘not easy to file’: expert

New tax filing standards are in place for bare trust assets, and Ali Spinner, a tax partner at Crowe Soberman LLP, says these requirements will not necessarily offer the Canada Revenue Agency the financial transparency they’re hoping for.

Starting this spring, Canadians will need to disclose beneficial ownership information for trusts when filing taxes, including for bare trusts. Ali Spinner, a tax partner at Crowe Soberman LLP, said in an interview with BNN Bloomberg Monday that a bare trust is when one person or one entity owns title to an asset in beneficial ownership for someone else.

“I completely understand that the CRA would like more transparency in finance when they wrote the legislation — they’re looking for more information about who really owns assets. If assets are held by one person, who is really the beneficial owner,” Spinner said. 

“Although there will be costs associated with the filing, in many bare trust tax returns, we’ll be telling the government who the trustee is and who the beneficial owner is, but we won’t actually be telling them what the asset is on that trust tax return,” Spinner explained.