Budget-Friendly Notifiable Transaction Review for Canadian Businesses

Some are. Legal fees are deductible when they relate to earning income or defending a tax position, such as collecting salary or wages owed to you, objecting to or appealing an assessment, or running a business. Fees paid to obtain or enforce support are generally deductible for the recipient. Fees for the divorce itself, for custody, or for personal disputes are not, and fees to acquire property are usually added to that property's cost instead.

Pay through your bank's online banking by adding the CRA as a payee and choosing the right account and year, through My Payment with a debit card, by pre-authorised debit scheduled in My Account, by credit card through a third-party provider that charges its own fee, or at a bank counter with a remittance voucher. For 2025 personal returns the payment deadline was 30 April 2026, including for the self-employed, and interest runs daily on anything unpaid after that.

The usual route is online banking: add the CRA as a payee, choose the account type and the tax year, and pay as you would any bill. You can also use the CRA's My Payment service with a debit card, set up pre-authorised debit inside My Account, pay at your financial institution, or pay by credit card through a third-party provider that charges its own fee. Keep the confirmation, since payments do not always post to your CRA account immediately.

Property tax is billed by your municipality, so a waiver request goes to the municipal tax office, not the CRA. Most municipalities can only cancel penalties in narrow situations, such as their own billing error or a documented hardship or relief program, and many have no discretion at all. Ask in writing, early, and keep paying the principal to stop further charges. CRA penalties are different: form RC4288 requests relief on federal amounts.

The consumer bears it; the business collects it. A registered vendor adds GST/HST to taxable sales, holds it in trust and remits it to the CRA, recovering the tax it paid on its own inputs through input tax credits. So businesses in the chain are generally neutral, while the final buyer pays. Some purchasers, including certain Indigenous purchases on reserve, governments and diplomats, have relief, and low-income households receive the quarterly GST/HST credit.

Most basic groceries are zero-rated, which means GST/HST applies at 0% and the seller can still claim input tax credits on related costs. Prepared and restaurant meals, snack foods, carbonated drinks and catering are normally taxable at the regular rate: 5% GST, or the HST rate in your province. Very little food is exempt rather than zero-rated. Check the CRA's guidance on basic groceries before deciding how to charge on a specific product.

Work it from your own figures rather than a rule of thumb. A corporation on active business income pays 9% federally on the first $500,000 for 2026, plus the provincial small business rate — 3.2% in Ontario, falling to 2.2% on 1 July 2026 — so reserve that share of profit as you earn it. A sole proprietor should set aside at their marginal personal rate plus CPP. Keep GST/HST collected in a separate account; that money was never yours.

You qualify by being a resident of Canada for tax purposes, meeting the CRA's age or family conditions, and filing a return. There is no separate application: the CRA works out entitlement from the adjusted family net income on your return and your spouse's, so both of you must file even with no income at all. Payments arrive quarterly and stop when a return is missing. Newcomers use the CRA's benefit application for new residents instead.

Your employer withholds income tax using the federal and provincial tables for your pay period and the claims on your TD1 forms, plus CPP or QPP and EI premiums until the annual maximums are reached. What comes off each payday is an estimate, so filing produces a refund or a balance owing. If too much is withheld all year, Form T1213 asks the CRA to authorise lower deductions; the CRA publishes no service standard for this, so allow several weeks and file before the tax year it applies to.

Yes. Paid parking in Ontario is a taxable supply, so 13% HST applies to lot, garage, meter and app-based parking and to monthly parking rentals. Municipal meters and hospital lots charge it too, usually included in the posted rate. Parking supplied to a tenant as part of a long-term residential lease can be exempt with the rent. If you park for business and are registered, the HST is generally recoverable as an input tax credit.

Property tax on the home you live in is not deductible. It becomes deductible only where the property earns income or supports a business: a landlord deducts it against rental income, and a self-employed person with a qualifying work space at home deducts the portion tied to that space, while a salaried employee working from home cannot claim property tax at all and only an employee paid by commission can. Tax on vacant investment land is often added to the land's cost instead. Keep the municipal bills.

Land transfer tax is a tax the buyer pays on closing when title changes hands, levied by most provinces — Alberta and Saskatchewan instead charge land title registration fees, and in Nova Scotia the deed transfer tax is set municipally. Where a province does levy it, the scale is usually graduated and applied to the purchase price, so a higher price attracts a higher effective rate. Some municipalities charge a second land transfer tax of their own, and several provinces, including Ontario and British Columbia, offer first-time buyer relief, as does the City of Toronto on its own municipal tax. Your lawyer collects and remits it at closing, so check your province's current schedule before you budget.