Sunday News Roundup 25.09.28: Expanded CRA audit powers, MAGA attacks IFRS, and more Canadian accounting news

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TORONTO, Sept. 28, 2025 – When it comes to expanded audit powers of the Canada Revenue Agency, the word we’re hearing over and over again is “adversarial.” At least, that was the headline of an editorial written by tax lawyers this past week in Canadian Lawyer, and it’s appeared in articles written by tax lawyers at Thorsteinssons and Faris. 

Let’s step back for a minute. In 2018, the Office of the Auditor General released a report that said, in some cases, taxpayers were taking too long to provide information to the CRA, making it difficult for the agency to collect taxes. The Department of Finance released draft legislation in 2024 and then re-released the draft on August 15, 2025. The consultation period for the revised proposals closed on September 12. The Joint Committee on Taxation of The Canadian Bar Association and Chartered Professional Accountants of Canada submitted its response on September 11. 

So what gives? Tax lawyers are pointing to a double whammy of non-compliance penalties and compellable powers under oath that gives an unfair advantage to CRA. The Canadian Bar Association and CPA Canada say the process is potentially open to abuse and inequities. But according to this Globe and Mail article, most experts feel the proposals will appear unchanged in this fall’s budget. 

We’re not so sure. First, these proposals are, after all, holdovers from the Trudeau government, and Carney has shown he is happy to jettison anything related to Trudeau. Second, there’s no guarantee that the fall budget will pass. Insiders suspect the Carney government is just itching to go back to the polls and secure a majority government. The Liberals, it seems, are hoping that one of the parties is just stupid enough to bring them down. 

But it’s also difficult to square the Carney government’s commitment to “competitiveness” with its need for tax revenue. Just like its recent announcement to boost CRA call-centre staff (after pressure from accountants and the public), while somehow expecting the agency to come up with spending cuts. Maybe there will be an “October surprise” and the proposals will never pass. Or maybe the days of “delay, delay, delay” are finally catching up with Canadian corporations. 

And now, on to the rest of the news from the past week in Canadian accounting.

MAGA SEC: Make Accounting GAAP Again?

First there was Erica Williams being shown the door as head of the US audit watchdog PCAOB. Then there was the open musing about cancelling quarterly financial reports, it seems that Donald Trump has another trick or two up his sleeve. The new MAGA chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, Paul Atkins, is threatening to require foreign companies listed in the United States — and that would include many of Canada’s largest corporations — to reconcile their international-standards-based reporting with US GAAP, according to Project Syndicate. 

Howard Davies, a bigwig in British financial and accounting circles, details how disruptive this would be to companies around the world — as well as to International Financial Reporting Standards Foundation and the International Financial Reporting Standards Board (IFRS). At the heart of all this is the International Sustainability Standards Board (ISSB) and the Trump Administration’s denial of climate change. 

Canadians, by the way, have always been a fixture at these international groups. Linda Mezon-Hutter, former chair of the Accounting Standards Board (AcSB) in Canada, is currently vice-chair of the IASB. Kevin Dancey, former president of the CICA, is the CEO at IFAC. And, of course, the ISSB played a prominent role in the former boss at CPA Canada departing to head the CSSB. 

Accounting Dealbook: BDO branding, MNP building, Doane Grant Thornton branding and building

BDO
Earlier this month, BDO Canada unveiled new branding, featuring the tagline Do more together. It was just 15 years ago that BDO accounting firms around the world rebranded to go with the single name “BDO.” The Canadian re-branding was done by an advertising agency called Fellow Human, which has worked with CPA Canada and Xero in the past. 

BDO USA P.C., by the way, just announced its acqusition of Horne LLP, a $300 million accounting firm in the Southeastern US, creating a $3.2 billion combined accounting and advisory firm. According to Bloomberg, the deal 1,300 employees to the BDO roster and positions the firm to challenge Baker Tilly for its rank as the sixth-largest US firm by revenue. 

MNP
This past week, homegrown national accounting firm MNP LLP announced two new deals, one in Ontario and one in British Columbia. First it was Shaun Raymond U.S. Tax Services, which is based in Vancouver and specializes in US and Canadian tax. One day later it was Tierney, Simpson & Prytula, Chartered Professional Accountants, which is based in Kingston. The latest acquisition makes seven locations in total in Easter Ontario for MNP with over 345 team members, including 46 partners. 

It’s just another sign that MNP has hardly slowed down in 2025, with around 20 deals thus far in 2025. It also reminds us of our three-part series back in 2017, Seismic Shift, which was all about the coming consolidation of the accounting firms in Canada. We were just months into the launch of Canadian Accountant at the time and that series, by Jeff Buckstein, CPA, looks remarkably prescient today.

Doane Grant Thornton
Finally, Doane Grant Thornton — which recently changed its name from just Grant Thornton in its own branding exercise — recently announced that it had acquired four CPA firms across Alberta (Capstone LLP), BC (Childs Chanton CPAs), New Brunswick (Paul Babin CPA), and Ontario (Gibb Widdis CPAs). Of the four, Childs Chanton is the oldest, with more than 70 years in the business.

Software News

Xerocon is where all the big announcements happen related to accounting software platform Xero. Earlier this month, at Xerocon Brisbane, the company made quite few announcements, most notably the launch of the “next evolution” of its AI financial superagent JAX (Just Ask Xero), and the Xero Partner Hub, a new one-stop shop for accountants and bookkeepers with all of Xero’s practice tools and data on one unified platform.

Quick Hits: Articles of Interest  

Canadian

The CRA is coming for your knitting club (Globe and Mail)
Canada’s carbon tax is dead. But it’s not dearly departed (Globe and Mail)
Daughter hit with $660,000 tax bill when both parents died in same year (CTV News)
Court upholds CRA’s denial of taxpayer's disability credit for sleep apnea (Financial Post)

International

Former KPMG executive eyes sale of new firm (Private Equity News)
New Rules on Accounting for Software Costs (Wall Street Journal)

By Canadian Accountant staff.