If you’re a small business, or re-sell tickets, lots of stuff on E-bay, Amazon, or wherever, here’s a big heads up: Canada Revenue Agency just received a court order to force your credit card provider to turn over all your sales records from 2012 onward if you processed more than $20,000 in any year.

They’re looking for people who sell stuff that doesn’t end up on their tax return as income. So, if your credit card sales are close to, or more, than your income filed, count on CRA getting in touch with you. You may want to voluntarily re-do your returns. I’m guessing your bank won’t give you the heads up, but now consider yourself warned.

Online bill pays: If you’re like most people, you probably make most or all of your bill payments online. What you need to remember is that the company you are paying is not getting the money when you press OK. They credit your account only when they actually receive it, and that’s not instant.

I keep being amazed that people think it’s paid on the spot. No. It’s the same as mailing a cheque. It’s not credited until it gets there! I paid my American Express partly from my credit union and the money was credited 24 hours later. I paid some from my bank business account and it got there 4 days later! You have to remember that. If not, you may be past due and get a lot of late charges when trusting your financial institution! It’s a rip off and it’s dumb because, as far as I know, computers don’t sleep or keep branch hours. They know you have the funds in the account and could, if they wanted to, credit it within hours!