Low-Cost Corporate Tax Objection for Canadian Businesses

Check My Account, which shows your current balance, any instalment requirement and the assessment for every year. The notice of assessment for your last filed return also states the balance, and the CRA's individual enquiries line can confirm it once you verify your identity. If returns are missing, the balance is not final until those years are filed. A representative can review it for you once authorised through Represent a Client or form AUT-01.

Sign in to CRA My Account and read the balance on the account overview, or check the notice of assessment issued after your return is processed. It states the balance owing or the refund and any interest charged. Until the return is prepared there is no figure to check, so an estimate means adding up your slips and deductions. Interest runs on an unpaid balance from the payment deadline, and the CRA will consider a payment arrangement.

Revenue Canada is the former name of the Canada Revenue Agency. The CRA is the federal body that administers income tax, GST/HST, payroll deductions and benefit payments such as the Canada child benefit, and it collects provincial income tax for every province except Quebec, which runs its own personal system through Revenu Québec. The old name is still in everyday use, so paying Revenue Canada means paying the CRA, and a letter from either is the same agency.

Ottawa collects personal income tax, corporate income tax and GST/HST, which together make up most federal revenue, plus excise duties and taxes on fuel, alcohol, tobacco and cannabis, customs duties on imports, and a share of other levies. CPP and EI contributions are also collected federally but fund those programs directly. The CRA administers most of these; Quebec administers its own provincial income tax and the QST. Revenue totals are published in the Public Accounts of Canada.

For your own tax information, ask for a personal information request through the federal ATIP online portal, or submit the government's request form to the CRA's access to information office. Name the years and the type of record - notices of assessment, audit working papers, collections notes - because a narrow request is answered faster. Check CRA My Account first: slips, notices and account balances are already there at no cost.

Check CRA My Account first, because it shows whether the return is assessed and when the refund was issued. An online return is normally processed in about two weeks; a non-resident return can take up to 16 weeks. If that time has passed, or the notice shows a change you did not expect, call the CRA's individual enquiries line with your return in front of you. Direct deposit is faster than a cheque.

No. The CRA's agent-staffed phone lines run on set weekday hours, with extended hours during the personal filing season, and they close on public holidays; the exact times for each line are published on the CRA's Contact us page. Some automated telephone services, along with My Account, My Business Account and Represent a Client, are available around the clock, so you can check a balance, a benefit payment or a notice without speaking to anyone.

Basic groceries are zero-rated for GST/HST, so no federal or harmonised tax is charged on bread, milk, produce, meat and similar staples. Snack foods, candy, carbonated drinks and prepared meals are excluded and taxable. On the provincial side, British Columbia, Saskatchewan and Manitoba exempt food for human consumption from PST and RST, so groceries carry no provincial retail sales tax either. Quebec's QST follows the federal zero-rating for basic groceries.

There is no fixed student refund. A refund is simply the tax withheld from your pay minus the tax you actually owe, so a student with modest earnings and some withholding often gets most of it back. Tuition amounts are a non-refundable credit: they reduce tax owing but do not create a refund on their own, and unused amounts carry forward to later years or can be transferred to a parent, grandparent or spouse within limits.

The Canada child benefit is a monthly tax-free payment based on how many children are in your care, their ages, whether a child qualifies for the disability benefit, and your adjusted family net income. Amounts are recalculated every July from the previous year's returns, so you and your spouse or common-law partner must both file each year to keep payments flowing. Apply through birth registration or in CRA My Account, and use the CRA's online calculator to estimate the amount.

HST applies only in Ontario at 13%, Nova Scotia at 14% since 1 April 2025, and New Brunswick, Newfoundland and Labrador and Prince Edward Island at 15%. Everywhere else the federal GST of 5% applies on its own or beside a separate provincial tax: British Columbia PST 7%, Saskatchewan 6%, Manitoba RST 7%, and Quebec QST 9.975% charged on the pre-GST price. Alberta and the three territories charge GST only.

A receipt that stands up to a CRA review shows the supplier's name and address, the date of the sale, a description of what was bought, and the amount paid. Where GST or HST was charged it should also show the tax and the supplier's GST/HST registration number, which is what supports an input tax credit claim. Card slips and bank statements on their own are weak support, because they prove an amount left the account but not what it bought.