Commencing in 2015, the Canada Revenue Agency has implemented changes to reporting foreign property on Form T1135. The changes include a simplified method for reporting foreign property rather than having to provide the detail of each property. A taxpayer qualifies to use the new simplified reporting method if they own specified foreign property with an adjusted cost base of more than $100,000 and less than $250,000 at any time during the year. This simplified reporting can be found on Part A of Form T1135. You are required to report on only the top three countries based on cost during the year. However, if a taxpayer owns specified foreign property with an adjusted cost base of more than $250,000 at any time in the year, Part B of T1135 must be filled out in more detail.

A caution for the 2015 taxation year is that, due to the appreciation of the US$, some properties that were under CDN$100,000 in 2014 might be worth over CDN$100,000 due to the exchange rate increase.

More good news is that you can still EFILE or NETFILE for the 2014 and subsequent taxation years. Also, the period for reassessing the return has been extended by three years if you have failed to report income from a specified foreign property and form T1135 was either not filed, not filed on time, or was filed inaccurately.

If you would like more information on filing the T1135, please visit the CRA website http://www.cra-arc.gc.ca/tx/nnrsdnts/cmmn/frgn/1135_fq-eng.html.