Simplifying Canada’s Tax Code with The Grumpy Accountant, Neal Winokur

Neal Winokur, CPA, and author of The Grumpy Accountant, is my guest on the podcast today. Since starting his CPA practice in 2013, Neal has grown increasingly disillusioned with Canada’s Tax Code and feels a moral obligation to speak out against it while also proposing a much more simplified version that will benefit all Canadians. He discusses these views and so much more during our conversation here today.

He begins by sharing just what it is about the tax code that bothers him so much, the changes he would like to see, and his thoughts regarding the implementation of a flat tax on spending. He also offers his ideas for simplifying tax returns for business owners, identifies the reasons why Canada has not moved to a GST or VAT approach along with his response to these reasons, and details a few of the many money-saving ideas that can be found in his book. Neal also explains how he saves, invests, and protects his money, explores Richard’s perspective on these strategies
with him, and relates the story of the low point in his career and how he climbed out of it. As the episode draws to a close, Neal offers advice for today’s accounting students, shares his ideal
vision for himself in 5 years, and provides his thought-provoking definition of financial independence.

Simplifying Canada’s Tax Code with The Grumpy Accountant, Neal Winokur

Download the full transcript here

Highlights:

We could have a system where your tax bill is like any other bill, but it seems like our politicians have no interest in really moving to a much simpler system.
Neal believes we should give business owners an option to file based on their revenue, not claiming any expenses, but then pay a lower rate of tax.
Some of Neal’s tips are to minimize or have the proper amount of money deducted from your T4 income, and set up your CRA account.
Once you have the CPA designation there are so many different areas of accounting that you could work in.
For Neal, financial independence means you could afford to earn a lower salary in a job that you really like, as opposed to being forced to work in a job you really don’t like.

Quotes:

“What really makes me grumpy is the fact that my job exists at all.”

“I think we could study the system itself, at least for simplicity vs. complexity and try to at least simplify things for as many people as we can.”

“You will have a greater pool of money at the end, if you can grow your portfolio on a tax deferred basis for many, many, many years.”

“I don’t care about daily fluctuations in price, I don’t sell and I don’t day trade, I don’t buy and sell a lot, hardly ever.”

“I think it’s so important that kids, really starting at a young age, they could even start as early as grade one, grade two, we start teaching kids about money and budgets and saving money and interest and taxes and all of these and bank accounts and credit cards.”