Affordable Missing Transaction Reconstruction for Canadian Businesses

Call the enquiry line for your situation, listed by topic on the CRA contact pages at canada.ca, then follow the automated menu to the option for speaking with an agent. Have your social insurance number or business number, your latest return and a recent notice of assessment ready, because the agent must verify you before discussing anything. Waits peak around the filing deadline and early calls connect faster. The CRA runs no walk-in tax counters.

You can pay through CRA My Business Account or My Payment, through your own financial institution's online banking by adding the CRA GST/HST payment as a payee under your business number, or by pre-authorised debit arranged in My Business Account. Third-party providers accept credit cards for a fee. Payment is due by the deadline for your reporting period, and filing the return does not by itself move the money, so schedule the two separately.

Yes. The CRA accepts returns after the deadline, and you should file as soon as you can. For the 2025 tax year the personal filing and payment deadline was 30 April 2026, so a later return is late: interest runs on any unpaid balance and a late-filing penalty applies when you owe. If you are owed a refund there is no penalty, but benefit and credit payments can be delayed until the return is processed.

Sometimes. Under the digital economy rules, a marketplace operator has to collect and remit GST/HST on sales it facilitates for vendors who are not registered themselves, including many non-resident vendors. If you are registered and selling your own goods held in Canada, you generally charge and remit the tax through your own return instead. Read the marketplace's tax reports so the same sale is not reported twice, and reconcile them to your filings.

Usually not. Most financial services, including account maintenance, interest, loan arrangement and transfers of money, are exempt supplies, so no GST/HST is charged and the bank claims no credits on them. Some charges billed on the same statement are taxable: safety deposit box rental, certain administrative or advisory services, equipment rental and merchant processing hardware. Read the statement, since taxable lines show the tax separately, and claim input tax credits only on those.

Put internet under utilities, or under telephone and communications if that is how your books are organised; consistency and keeping the bills matter more than the label. On a T2125 it sits with your other office and utility costs, and you claim only the business-use share. Running a home office, prorate by the space and hours used. Employees can claim it only where the employer certifies that home office expenses were required.

You cannot write off the income itself, but you deduct the costs of earning it. Common current expenses are mortgage interest (not principal), property tax, insurance, utilities you pay, condo fees, advertising, property management, and repairs that maintain the property. Improvements that better the property are capital and depreciated instead. Only the rented portion counts where you also live there. Keep invoices for six years from the end of the tax year they relate to.

Yes, but through your municipality rather than the CRA. Cities and towns run their own property tax portals where you can see the account balance, instalment dates and past bills using the roll or account number from your tax bill, and many also show the assessed value from the provincial assessment body. Property tax is not reported on a T1, though it can matter for a home-office claim or a provincial property-tax credit.

A refund reflects how much tax was withheld against what you actually owe, not your marital status, so nothing grows simply because you married. Couples can come out ahead by transferring unused credits, splitting eligible pension income, or claiming the partner amount where one income is low. They can also come out behind, because the GST/HST credit and the Canada child benefit are tested on combined family income rather than on each person separately.

There is no floor. Business income is reportable from the first dollar, so a side business earning a few hundred dollars still goes on Form T2125 with your return. Whether tax is actually payable depends on your total income for the year measured against the basic personal amount and your credits, not on the side business alone. Separately, GST/HST registration becomes mandatory once worldwide taxable revenue passes the small-supplier threshold, $30,000 for 2025 and 2026, measured either over four consecutive calendar quarters or within a single quarter, and counting the supplies of any associated persons.

Employment income is taxed at source, so the levers are deductions and credits rather than avoidance. RRSP contributions reduce taxable income, and Form T1213 asks the CRA to lower the tax withheld from your pay for deductions you know you will claim. The CRA publishes no processing standard for it, so allow several weeks and send the request in the autumn before the year it applies to; a letter of authority covers one tax year only. Union dues, professional fees, child care and employer-approved employment expenses also help.

Filing is required whenever tax is owing for the year, when the CRA asks you to file, or when part of a benefit such as OAS has to be repaid. Even with no tax owing, most retirees should still file. The GST/HST credit, the Guaranteed Income Supplement, provincial credits and age-related amounts are all calculated from the filed return, and a missed year can interrupt those payments until the return goes in.