Meet Janice Savage: The tax everyone pays but no one really understands

“Indirect Tax,” Janice Savage has always thought, is an underappreciated and misunderstood discipline in the accounting world. It is, after all, a practice area responsible for advising on the taxes that everyone pays on everything, like GST/HST, duties, and provincial sales taxes, and it really doesn’t get a lot more “direct” than that.

Becoming well-versed in the subject matter is tricky, though, as there aren’t many formal opportunities to learn the ins and outs of these taxes. As a result, it’s also a severely underserved practice area, even as the rules governing commodity taxes have become more complex in what is now largely a digital, global marketplace.

That gap is exactly what McMaster Continuing Education’s new Canadian Indirect Taxes program is designed to close, and Janice Savage is the instructor leading the way.

“I was thrilled to be asked to work with McMaster Continuing Education to develop and instruct three Indirect Tax courses that are intended to cover some of the most relevant topics in Canada today,” Janice says.

CIT 101, Introduction to the Canadian Goods and Services Tax (GST)/Harmonized Sales Tax (HST), is an introductory course that lays the foundation for more complex topics by understanding the theory behind Value-Added and Sales and Use taxes and how to use the Excise Tax Act as a problem-solving tool. CIT 102, Public Institutions and Service Bodies (MUSH), explores the manner in which GST/HST applies in the public sector by breaking down complicated legislation into its logical patterns. CIT 103, Cross-Border and Ecommerce, focuses on sales tax issues surrounding cross-border trade, domestically and internationally, and how the digital economy has shaped the way tax applies to consumer goods and services today.

Together, the three courses form the program’s Certificate of Completion, and each can also be taken as a stand-alone microcredential, giving students the flexibility to build toward the full certificate or simply sharpen their skills in one area. The program runs fully virtually and in real time, so students can build in-demand indirect tax expertise without stepping away from full-time work.

“These courses are designed to help financial services professionals become more valuable to their employers and clients by giving them the tools to identify and remediate risks that traditional accounting programs don’t provide,” Janice explains.

“Anyone who has ever been asked to opine on whether ‘HST applies on that’ and shrugged their shoulders in response would benefit from participating in these programs.”

That’s a familiar moment for many finance professionals, and it’s exactly the kind of gap the program was built to close. The Canadian Indirect Taxes program is geared toward professionals responsible for administering indirect taxes within their organizations, as well as practitioners in the financial services industry, such as accountants and bookkeepers, who want to provide their clients with deeper insight into their risks and obligations. It’s also built for anyone looking to gain new knowledge and skills for future application. Graduates come away with a specialization in an underserved discipline within Tax, the skills to manage sales tax audits conducted by federal and provincial authorities, and strategies for minimizing the costs and exposure associated with indirect taxes in Canada.

Janice is upfront about the challenge of committing to a course like this. “I know that committing to an 18-20 hour course in any kind of tax can be viewed as setting yourself up for a very dry semester, but I believe that when material like this is kept entertaining and relevant, it is much easier to learn, understand, and stay motivated. In fact, I commit to giving every student the opportunity to be more fun at parties by understanding the tax that everyone pays on everything, but no one knows anything about.”

So, whether you’re a bookkeeper, part of a finance team, a CPA in public practice, or someone who has very little background in the accounting industry but is looking for a unique skill set to add to your resume, Janice and the Canadian Indirect Taxes program are ready to welcome you.

Learn more about McMaster Continuing Education’s Canadian Indirect Taxes program and course offerings.