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At Tax Filings Canada, we handle every part of your post-mortem tax planning, from the filing itself to the planning around it. Our accountants work with trustees and executors every week, so the trust or estate meets its reporting obligations and beneficiaries are allocated correctly.
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Stay compliant and optimize your financial processes with our specialized post-mortem tax planning services.
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Tax Filings Canada provides low-cost, fixed-fee post-mortem tax planning across Canada: T3 trust returns, estate freezes and the final T1 with its elections, built for trustees, executors and family enterprises, with payment only after your work is complete.
Send us your slips, statements, and supporting records in whatever format suits you.
We prepare the post-mortem tax planning work and flag anything that deserves a closer look.
You review the draft with us and ask questions before anything is finalized.
Once you approve, we file on your behalf and confirm it has gone through.
| Factor | Tax Filings Canada | Typical Firm |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing model | Fixed, flat fee | Hourly / unpredictable |
| Payment | Pay after service | Upfront retainer |
| Price match | Yes, on written quotes | Rarely |
| CRA audit support | Included | Billed extra |
| Typical turnaround | 3-5 business days | 2-4 weeks |
A deceased taxpayer's final T1 can be paired with a separate rights-or-things return, which often saves real tax through a second set of credits. Because the fee is fixed and low-cost, the economics stay predictable whether your file is simple or messy.
Clients often arrive treating post-mortem tax planning as a form-filling exercise. In practice, a tax services provider spends more time on judgment calls than on data entry — and those calls are what these notes cover.
One rule does most of the work here. T1 returns are due April 30, and June 15 for the self-employed — but any balance owing is due April 30 regardless, with interest compounding daily from that date. The June deadline misleads a great many self-employed filers into paying two months late without realising it.
From there, the file turns on a second question, and the rule behind it reads as follows. Planning has to be in place before the transaction. The salary-versus-dividend mix, the timing of a capital purchase and the choice of year-end all change the outcome, but only prospectively. Almost every planning opportunity we see missed was available and simply not taken in time; very few are recoverable after year-end. One more rule deserves attention, mostly because ignoring it is expensive in ways that only show up later. Shares qualify for the lifetime capital gains exemption only where all or substantially all of the corporation’s assets are used in an active business at the time of sale and more than half were so used throughout the 24 months before it. Surplus cash and passive investments are cleared out years ahead of a sale, not at closing.
None of this is exotic — but each point has to be applied to your facts, which is exactly what you are paying a tax filing specialist to do. What you bring to the table determines how quickly the post-mortem tax planning work proceeds — start with the items below.
Our terms are the same for every engagement: a fixed fee agreed before work begins, a full review with you before filing, and payment only after the service is complete.
Providing transparent fixed pricing and high-quality Accounting Firm compliance for your post-mortem tax planning requirements.
Coverage: Standard bookkeeping and post-mortem tax planning preparation.
Ideal for early-stage startups and sole proprietors.
Book NowCoverage: Full-service bookkeeping, filings, and CRA compliance support.
Perfect for established small businesses.
Book NowCoverage: Strategic advisory and fractional CFO integration.
Ideal for companies seeking high-growth financial structuring.
Book NowWhy you should partner with Tax Filings Canada Experts for all your post-mortem tax planning needs?
Providing tailored post-mortem tax planning services to ensure compliance and maximize deductions.
Our certified accountants protect your business with complete federal and provincial tax compliance.
A dedicated team that handles your financials quickly, accurately, and without upfront fees.
Dedicated preparation processes customized for Canadian businesses.
Advanced accounting software integrations with QuickBooks, Xero, and wave accounting.
Customized packages designed to grow as your business operations expand.
Our clear four-step workflow ensuring absolute tax optimization and complete CRA compliance.
Start with a free, no-obligation consultation to review your business’s financial, tax filing and compliance needs and outline our affordable solutions.
Receive a comprehensive checklist and securely provide the required financial records and documents.
Our tax accountant and accounting experts carefully prepare your filings, identify all applicable deductions and credits, and conduct thorough reviews.
We file your documents electronically with the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) on time and provide post-filing support.
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See how our expert Post-Mortem Tax Planning tax and accounting services have helped Canadian businesses save money and stay compliant.
A family with a cottage held in trust in Ottawa, Ontario had already been penalised over a family trust approaching its 21-year deemed disposition with no plan. A relief application cancelled $141,000 of that penalty.
A remuneration review at an estate designated as a graduated rate estate in Regina, Saskatchewan found a final return filed without the rights-or-things election, leaving a second set of credits unused and saved $66,000 across the corporate and personal returns.
A trustee of an alter-ego trust in Lethbridge, Alberta had never tested its work against the eligibility rules. The resulting $65,000 claim was accepted without adjustment.
A corporation planning an intergenerational transfer in Surrey, British Columbia had outgrown its structure, with an estate distributing to adult children with no provision made for the deemed disposition on the final return the visible cost. The reorganisation completed tax-deferred and saves $46,000 a year.
21 months of records at a beneficiary receiving a trust distribution in Victoria, British Columbia had never been reconciled, leaving a farm transfer completed without using the intergenerational rollover. Rebuilding recovered $4,800.
Scaling exposed a graduated rate estate designation missed on the first return, defaulting the estate to top-rate taxation at a family transferring a farm to the next generation in Vancouver, British Columbia. The back office was rebuilt to match, freeing $34,500.
Meet the specialists behind your Post-Mortem Tax Planning filings. Our Partners Are Alumni of the World's Top Accounting and Tax Institutions
CA (ICAI), CA (MIA), CPA Canada (In-Depth Tax Program)
Canada Tax, International Tax, Cross Border Tax, Transfer Pricing
International Tax, Transfer Pricing Specialist
CA (ICAI), Canada Tax Expert
CA. Fractional CFO and Senior Advisory Specialist
Same fixed fees in every province. Find your city or your sector.
Direct answers to what Canadian business owners actually ask before hiring an accountant.
Post-Mortem Tax Planning starts at a fixed fee quoted before any work begins. The quote is locked at the outset and does not change mid-engagement, and you pay only after you have reviewed and approved the deliverable. Compare every plan on our transparent pricing page.
At minimum: prior-year returns and notices of assessment, your bank and credit-card statements for the fiscal period, payroll records if you have employees, and GST/HST filings. We send a checklist tailored to your situation after the free 15-minute call.
Most engagements are completed within 3 to 5 business days once your documents are complete. Catch-up work covering multiple years takes longer, and we tell you the realistic timeline before you commit rather than after.
We respond on your behalf at no extra charge for any return we prepared. Every figure we file is supported by documentation retained in your file, which is what turns a CRA review from a crisis into correspondence. See how our CRA audit representation works.
Yes. Late filing penalties compound at 5% of the balance owing plus 1% per month, so the cost of waiting is real. We prioritise catch-up work and, where eligible, file under the CRA's Voluntary Disclosures Program to reduce penalties.
Yes. We are a cloud-based practice serving every province and territory, so your location does not change the price or the service. Browse our coverage across Canada to find your city.
We work across construction, healthcare, e-commerce, professional services, restaurants, real estate, transportation, technology and non-profits, each with its own deduction profile and CRA scrutiny patterns. See all industries we serve.
Software applies the rules you already know about. An experienced tax accountant finds the ones you do not: capital cost allowance timing, the small business deduction threshold, shareholder loan repayment rules, and TOSI exposure on family dividends. The fee is usually smaller than the deductions it surfaces.
Our post-mortem tax planning services include complete filing, compliance management, and strategic advice customized to Canadian tax laws.
You can start by booking a free 15-minute call. We will review your files, provide a fixed quote, and start working immediately.
You are asking the right question, and it has a real answer. An estate qualifies as a graduated rate estate for its first 36 months, giving access to graduated rates rather than the top marginal rate — but only if the designation is made on the first return. What we add on top of that is the paperwork discipline that makes the answer stand up if anyone ever asks you to prove it.
Let us give you the substance first and the caveats second. A deceased taxpayer’s final T1 can be paired with a separate rights-or-things return, which gives a second set of personal credits and often saves real tax. The caveat is simply that facts on your file can shift the outcome, so treat this as the baseline rather than the final word.
The questions Canadians actually search on this topic, answered plainly. Browse every question in the Canadian tax answers directory.
Work out the tax you actually owe for the year, then compare it with what has already been paid. Total your income, subtract deductions to reach taxable income, apply the federal and provincial brackets, take off your credits, and set the result against the tax withheld on your T4 and other slips plus any instalments. If more was withheld than you owe, the difference is your refund. Tax software approved for NETFILE runs the same arithmetic once your slips are entered.
As the rules stand for the 2025 tax year filed in 2026, the late-filing penalty is 5% of the balance owing plus 1% of that balance for each full month the return is late, to a maximum of 12 months, so 17% at worst. It rises to 10% plus 2% per month for up to 20 months, a 50% maximum, but only where the CRA formally demanded the return and had already charged a late-filing penalty for any of the three preceding tax years. Interest compounds daily.
For 2025 returns filed in 2026 the CRA service standard is about two weeks for a return filed online, and up to sixteen weeks for a non-resident return. A paper return runs on a considerably longer standard. These are service standards rather than guarantees: a review of your claims, a missing slip, a debt owed to another government programme, or a return filed before the CRA has your slips on file can all hold the money longer.
For the 2025 tax year, most people had to file and pay by 30 April 2026. If you or your spouse were self-employed, the filing deadline moved to 15 June 2026, but any balance owing was still due 30 April 2026. Corporations work on their own fiscal year: the T2 is due six months after year end, with the balance due two months after year end, or three months for an eligible CCPC claiming the small business deduction.
The CRA publishes its numbers on the Contact the Canada Revenue Agency page, with separate lines for individual enquiries, business enquiries and benefits. We do not quote them here because they change and vary by service. Have your social insurance number or business number, a recent return and your postal code ready, since the agent will verify your identity before discussing your account. Automated self-service handles balances, and My Account answers many questions without a call.
Yes. Employment insurance benefits are taxable income, including a retroactive lump sum, and the payer withholds some tax before you receive it. Report the amount in the year you received it, using the benefit slip issued for that year, and expect the tax to be trued up on your return. If the retroactive payment covers earlier years and is large, the CRA can apply a special averaging calculation on request.
For the 2025 tax year, yes: CRA online filing opened 23 February 2026 and closes 29 January 2027. Filing early is only worth it once your slips are available, because a return sent before employers and issuers report can miss a T4 or T5 and need a T1-ADJ afterwards. Check the slips listed in My Account against your own records first. The 2025 deadline was 30 April 2026, so an unfiled return should go in now.
Not directly. The CRA does not report your balance to the credit bureaus, so an unpaid amount by itself does not show on your credit file. It can reach your credit indirectly, because the CRA can register a lien against property or file a certificate in court, which becomes public record, and it can garnish wages or a bank account. Interest compounds daily on the balance, so a payment arrangement is usually cheaper than borrowing at card rates to clear it.
Register for CRA My Account. It shows your notices of assessment, balance owing, instalment reminders, RRSP and TFSA room, benefit payments, the slips the CRA has received, and the status of a filed return. Sign in with a Sign-In Partner or a CRA user ID; identity is confirmed by a code sent to you or by the document verification option. You can also authorise a representative on an AUT-01 to view it for you.
Property tax is municipal. Your city, town or rural municipality sets the annual rate and issues the bill, inside a framework the province sets: provinces create municipalities, run the assessment bodies that value properties, and add the education or school-support levy that appears on the same bill. The federal government has no role in property tax at all, so neither the CRA nor your income tax return is where a property tax dispute is settled. The municipality is.
Canada has no gift tax, so the amount you can give a spouse is unlimited and neither of you reports the gift itself. The catch is attribution: income and capital gains on property you transfer or gift to a spouse are generally taxed back in your hands rather than theirs, so a gift alone does not split income. A documented spousal loan bearing the CRA prescribed rate is the usual alternative.
The tools are ordinary ones used at scale: earning capital gains and dividends instead of salary, holding investments through a corporation or a family trust, filling registered accounts, donating appreciated securities rather than cash, and splitting income with family members where the rules allow it. None of that removes tax. It changes the rate, the timing and who reports the income. Structures with no commercial purpose behind them get attacked under the general anti-avoidance rule.
Reviewed and fact-checked by Udit Gupta
Ex Big 4 — Ernst & Young, Deloitte · International & cross-border tax specialist · CPA Canada (In-Depth Tax Program) · Chartered accountant, ICAI & MIA
Udit Gupta has over 15 years of experience helping corporations and business owners with corporate structuring, corporate tax filing, bookkeeping, payroll, GST/HST, cross-border tax and CRA representation. Big 4 trained at Ernst & Young and Deloitte, and qualified as a chartered accountant in India and again in Malaysia, he founded his accounting practice in 2014 to serve entrepreneurs, startups and non-resident business owners across Canada. View full member bio.
The Institute of Chartered Accountants of India — member 521458 · Malaysian Institute of Accountants — member CA 44667 · Ex Big 4: Ernst & Young, Deloitte · CPA Canada (In-Depth Tax Program), completed 19 Dec 2023 · In-Depth GST/HST Part I, 12 Jul 2022 · Part II, 5 Jul 2023
Editorial policy. Every page is researched against primary sources — the Income Tax Act, CRA publications and CPA Canada guidance — and every rate or threshold is stated with the tax year it applies to.
