July

In July, it remained as peaceful. I do the regular works as I have been doing so far. As I have been working since January, I am quite confident in doing the most of the works now.

Besides, I took the initiative to volunteer for Canada day and Heritage day for the both events. It had been fun for volunteering to get to know people around.

June

Early this month, I was helping in preparing the year-end reports to be reviewed by the owners. After Mel finished off with the financial reports, he then showed me the reports before sending off to the owners. Also, there was a co-worker going on vacation so she had trained me to do deposits for her while she was away for holidays. I was glad that I learnt something new other than taxation.

At the beginning of June, I had organized to visit the oil sands discovery centre. There was about 10 of us were going to the centre.  We were introduced to the process of oil sands mining, some of the heavy equipment being used in the process, different mining method to mind oil sands and materials by different companies due to different mine conditions. Today, many of these old heavy equipment were donated by the companies.

Besides that, I also volunteered for golf tournament at Syncrude Boreal Open on a weekend. I was assigned to work at the main scoreboard with another two students.

May

I am still working on the same position as last semester, so my job descriptions are similar to what I have been doing. This month, I began working on the year-end reviews for the owners from tax requirement #1 to #29 except a few of them will be done by my supervisor.

Also, I got a chance to meet with another senior adviser through SNAP (Syncrude Network Advisory Program). She is a CMA who has been working with Syncrude for more than twenty years. She had shared her experiences with me about her career with Syncrude. She also encouraged me to do CMA program after this work term, which inspired me. 

Site visit tour

Besides what I have been working on, this month, I was doing mostly on the investment tax credit summary for March for tax requirement  #1 and #25. The investment tax credit summary was indeed a hard one. For instance, I have to find out how many years the projects have been started and  the availability of the project for that year. I refer to the previous summary report to find out the accumulated dollar amounts has been spent for the particular projects, configuring what the rolling start numbers and long term projects. 

Oil sands which looked more like chocolate -peanut butter brownies.
Also, we had organized a site-tour to Aurora mining. This was an excellent tour that I really open my eyes to the oil industry. We took a shuttle from based plant to Aurora mining site. Firstly, we were introduced to the oil sands, also known as tar sands, which contain of sands, clays, water, and a form of bitumen. Tar, like its name implies, which is similar to its appearance, odour,  and colour.  

It was the end of semester and some of the students were done for this co-op work term. So, we had a farewell dinner for them. It was probably the last chance we got together; some said they were done with this wilderness of northen Alberta, but some said they might want to come back after graduated. 

What happened in March

Early in the month, I began working on tax preparation such as Alberta tax rebate, GST, Non-resident withholding tax. Also, since last week, I have been working on investment tax credit summary. This report provides a detail of capital expenditure for the period to be reviewed by the owners. The cost of capital are not allowed to deduct from the net business income for the year; however, Income Tax Act (ITA) does permit the deduction of specified capital cost allowances (CCA) for capital acquired in the year and available for use.CCA is an allowable deduction for depreciable property such as building, equipment to be used for business purposes for capital acquired in the year and available for use. Capital is required to be classified into prescribed classes with prescribed CCA rates.

Also, there was a Field Level Risk Assessment (FLRA) meeting in our department. It is a tool in helping individuals and teams to identify hazards, assess the risks, and take action to control the risks. Field refers to the area where work is conducted such as shops, offices, and so on. Even though we are not working on-site; many of us do not realize what risks exist because we have been working our jobs in the same way, incidents are not common in our area, our concentration lapses, and we become desensitized to the job hazards. We can also apply FLRA to prevent an actual or potential incident on the job, at home, or in our community.

"Killer spicy noodle"

Besides work, we had some fun in our spare time. I volunteered to host a potluck dinner. It was a multicultural dinner because we brought our home-made dishes to share, such as Indian chicken Tandoori, chicken satay (kebab), Asian style fishballs, salad, appetizers and last but not least, my home style Malaysian curry laksa noodles. It was really hot and spicy, I myself couldn't stand the spiciness and so it came to be nicknamed as "killer spicy noodles".


There was one Wednesday night, we went to a local bar for wings and to watch a hockey game. That was the first time I had many different flavours of wings. Beer and wings, what a good combination! I must confess I overate; I felt sick from eating too much and ended up staying up all night. So, no more wings for me!!

On March 29th, we attended an event for students -- Syncrude Network Advisory Program (SNAP). The event kicked off with ice-breaking by asking questions, then it was followed by a great dinner and finally a team work project: top gun design game. This was a great opportunity for students and new graduates for meeting with other employees in the company within or outside their fields. I chose two mentors to meet - an accountant who has obtained her CMA designation, and a professional engineer. Hope to share more stories with you on the next posting. 

February update

This looked like a short month; in fact, it actually was just 28 days. Time flies. Over the past month, I was preparing Non-resident withholding tax for year 2010 and the preparation of monthly remittance. ( It took me about a week or so to ensure everything back on track). If you have followed me, I had briefly introduced on what Non-resident withholding tax is in January wrap-up. I had to ensure all the transactions, which were involved with the US companies while performing works in Canada, the number of days in Canada, travel expenses, and such were correctly entered into the spreadsheet. Also, I got some advice from my supervisor where there were some grey areas, to back on track. From the spreadsheet that I produced, then reviewed and got the approval from my supervisor before remittance to Receiver General. Believe or not, I have been enhancing my skill in Excel! Besides there were some typos, overall I did well with the preparation sheet.

I have been working on quarterly report for Alberta Fuel Tax rebates for clear diesel and gasoline since last week. They were a huge data for these two accounts especially the unleaded gasoline. However, I was advised that this will be the second last time of doing it. According to Alberta budget 2011, "Rebates relating to the Tax-Exempt Fuel Use (TEFU) and Prescribed Rebates Off-Road Percentages (PROP) programs have been eliminated for fuel purchased or used after February 24, 2011. "

Monday was the month-end for February. So, I had to record journal entries pertaining to G.S.T. accounts, and prepared a cheque requisition for GST remittance to the Receiver General. This process takes three days for  rolling-up from other departments.

January wrap-up

In this co-op work term, I work for corporate reporting in Controller department. This is where I really open my eyes to the real job environment where I learn something new that had not found in textbooks. Since the first day started working in the Controller department, Mel has been trying to set me up to the new launch software called XME (Exxon Mobile Managed Environment) besides SAP which has been used concurrently. Due to security and permission reasons, I have been waiting for the access to other programs. So far, the training included on how to use these custom made software for daily tasks. At the mean time, I have been practising on the tax procedures and doing mocks on preparation taxes by using Excels. The coming week is month end, so I will be working with Mel on preparation of GST rebates and remittance of non-resident withholding tax.

I had attended a meeting about Non-resident withholding tax which was conducted by Mel. As its name implies, " ... anyone making certain payments to non-residents of Canada withhold part of the payment and remit to CRA. The  withholding is an estimate of Canadian tax on profits generated by non-residents in Canada." . Besides that, I learnt about the procedures of non-resident tax, what we withhold on, how can we calculate on withholding tax, what happen if we don't withhold, etc. 


Besides work hours, I do enjoy my lunch breaks with other people. I have met with other senior executives for lunch because I would like to learn the career paths in this industry, to share their experiences and to learn from them. On regular basis, I have lunch with other IT students and we plan for the weekend activities.

Last but not least, there was a year-end party for Controller department on last weekend. I had met lots of new faces from our department in this event. I attended the event with another two co-workers; they were enjoying the great time together unlike they worked with tensed faces. Guess what? I got a wine chiller from door prize even though I was going to say I wasn't the lucky one.

My role as a co-op student

After conversed with my supervisor Mel, Who is a CA, that my role in this co-op work term as an assistant to tax advisor which included but not limited to, preparation of Alberta Fuel Tax rebates, gathering and analyzing year end tax data, draft monthly GST and non-resident withholding tax returns, documentation of procedures, and assist others senior executives as available.