Canadian Accountant’s most popular accounting stories of 2025

TORONTO, Jan. 4, 2026 – During the past year, Canadian Accountant published around 200 articles on a variety of topics relevant to the Canadian accounting profession, from public practice to management accounting to the CPA program and its Common Final Examination. 

Overshadowing each of these stories, of course, was the biggest story of the year — US President Donald Trump and his threats to annex a sovereign nation. We’re talking about Canada here, not Venezuela, but 2025 was all about Trump, tariffs and, by extension, the election victory of Mark Carney and the disastrous defeat of Pierre Poilievre. 

Therefore, for Canadian accountants, the past year was all about mitigating the effects, economic and otherwise, of Donald J. Trump. But in reverse order, here are the five articles that proved most popular with our readers in 2025, with honourable mentions saved to the end. 

5.  Which Big Four accounting firm failed its annual inspection (again)? Maybe we’ll find out in 2026

Now that we have turned the page into 2026, it won’t be long until we find out whether the Canadian Public Accountability Board — now under new leadership — will follow through on its progress towards more transparent reporting. This article, first published in April 2025, is one we’re sure to look back upon in the months to come. 

4. Oh, what a tangled web: The taxation of foreign affiliates

In May of this past year, we published an article by Allan Lanthier, who wrote about a Tax Court of Canada case involving Brookfield Corporation and its controlled foreign affiliates in Bermuda and Barbados. The timing was auspicious, as Mark Carney — formerly board chair of Brookfield Asset Management — had just been elected as the 24th prime minister of Canada. 

3. Alberta: Working group to explore unpaid oil and gas property tax problem

In 2024, when we began to cover municipal taxation in a serious way, the very first article we published was on the problem of unpaid property taxes by oil and gas companies in Alberta. Thanks to media outlets such as Canadian Accountant, the Alberta government finally showed some movement on the issue in 2025, though time will tell if Danielle Smith is willing to address the issue. 

2. US audit watchdog censures KPMG Canada for repeatedly failing to accurately disclose who performed audits

In March, the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board cracked down on Big Four accounting firm KPMG, and levied US$700k against KPMG Canada as part of US$3.375 million in total against nine member firms of global network. The offence? Failing to disclose the participation of other accounting firms in KPMG audits. Thanks to the PCAOB, we found out a host of information about KPMG audit practices, prior to the defanging of the US audit watchdog by the Trump Administration. 

1. Landmark Canadian tax law decision that limits CRA's authority under section 231.2 of Income Tax Act

Whither Shopify? The homegrown Canadian tech success and its founder have been at odds with Canadian authorities over tax avoidance for years: opposition to capital gains, the one-dollar salary, and this story, which became the most popular article on Canadian Accountant in 2025. 

But hold up — the story’s not over. Just two days ago, the Federal Court of Appeal ordered Shopify not to delete its user data, pending the government’s appeal of the case. Would Shopify press the wrong button by mistake in a bid to protect its business interests? (The company has a policy regarding the automatic deletion of user data after a certain time period.) Our prediction? This case is headed for the Supreme Court. 

Honourable Mentions

Among our most popular articles every year are those that cover the annual results of the Common Final Examination. Each year we do a deep dive into the results, looking for trends and curiosities, such surprises and lessons from May of 2025. 

Surprisingly, in what could only be described as a human interest, was this profile of Conservative MP William Stevenson, a chartered professional accountant who served as a financial agent for multiple MPs, who was eventually elected to Parliament. 

And finally, we’d be remiss if we didn’t mention 20 tax audit triggers, first written in January 2020 — yes, five years ago — by Dale Barrett. All we can say about its perennial place in our top stories in any given year is that there must be a lot of Canadians out there scared about the prospect of a reassessment. 

Thanks for being loyal readers of Canadian Accountant and we look forward to providing you with more independent journalism in 2026. 

By Canadian Accountant staff.