Affordable Quality-of-Earnings Support for Canadian Businesses

Paper returns go to the CRA tax centre that serves your province or territory of residence, not to one national address. The correct address is printed in the paper return package and listed on canada.ca under mailing addresses for individual returns, and it differs for non-residents and for business returns. Filing electronically is much faster: for the 2025 tax year the CRA aims to issue a refund on an online return in about two weeks, against a considerably longer standard on paper.

Most enquiries are settled without a phone call in My Account, My Business Account or Represent a Client, where assessments, balances, slips and CRA mail all sit. When you need a person, use the enquiries line for your programme from the contact page on canada.ca, and have your social insurance or business number plus a figure from a recent return ready for identity checks. Written enquiries go to the tax centre named on your notice of assessment.

Medical costs give a non-refundable credit rather than a deduction. Eligible items include prescription drugs, dental work, eyeglasses and contact lenses, fees paid to medical practitioners authorised to practise, private health plan premiums, attendant care and travel for treatment unavailable locally. Over-the-counter products and most cosmetic procedures do not qualify. Only the portion above an income-based threshold counts, the claim period may end at any point in the tax year rather than following the calendar year, and pooling the family claim on one spouse usually helps.

Yes. Canada Post charges GST/HST on domestic postage, including stamps, at the rate of the province where you buy them: 13% in Ontario, 5% GST where there is no HST. Postage for mail addressed outside Canada is generally zero-rated, so no GST/HST is charged on it. The tax shows on your receipt rather than in the stamp's face value. Check the CRA's GST/HST rates page for the rate in your province.

Close, but not identical. Retiring allowance is the tax term: an amount received on or after retirement or loss of office, including severance, a retirement gratuity and unused sick-leave credits. Severance is the employment-law word for compensation on dismissal, and most of it falls inside the retiring allowance definition. Retiring allowances are reported on a T4 in their own box, taxed as income, with no CPP or EI withheld, and may be partly transferable to an RRSP.

A financial transaction tax is a levy charged on the value of a trade in securities or currency, paid each time an asset changes hands. Canada does not have one, and it has no securities transaction tax of the sort India applies. Canadian investors are taxed on results instead: capital gains at the one-half inclusion rate for 2025 and 2026, plus tax on dividends and interest. Trading fees you pay are commissions, not tax.

Register in Represent a Client from the CRA sign-in page; the RepID is issued straight away once your identity is confirmed. A RepID identifies you personally, a group identifier covers a team, and a business number is used where a firm acts. The identifier alone opens nothing: each client must then authorise you online from their own CRA account, or sign an AUT-01 for the CRA to process, before you can see their information.

Yes. If the property is rented out to earn income, a net rental loss reduces your other income for the year, employment income included, and anything left over becomes a non-capital loss you can carry back or forward. Unpaid rent is different: rent is reported when received, so you cannot deduct rent you never collected unless you had already included it in income. A loss on a property rented to family below cost is normally denied as a personal expense.

No. The fuel charge applies to fuels, not tobacco. Cigarettes carry federal excise duty, a provincial or territorial tobacco tax, and GST or HST on the shelf price, which is why tax makes up most of what you pay. Duty and tobacco tax rates move with budgets and some federal rates are adjusted annually, so check the CRA excise duty rates page and your province's tobacco tax page rather than an older figure.

Rent for your own home is generally not deductible federally, so there is no line for it. Three situations differ. Rent on space used to earn self-employment income goes in the business-use-of-home section of your T2125. Employees with a signed employer certification may claim a portion of rent for a work space. And Ontario, Manitoba and Quebec run provincial credits where rent paid feeds a benefit calculation on the provincial schedule. Keep receipts and your landlord's details.

A new assessed value or municipal rate applies for the tax year the municipality sets it for, not from the day you receive the notice. Provincial assessment bodies value properties as at a fixed valuation date and phase increases in over a cycle, then councils set the annual rates, which appear on the final bill rather than the interim one. A reassessment after a renovation or a change in use can be billed back to its effective date.

The levers are structure, timing and records. Claim every legitimate expense you can support, use capital cost allowance, and check whether an accelerated first-year deduction is available for the particular property before assuming the ordinary half-year rule applies, keep active business income within the small business deduction, and set the salary and dividend mix deliberately rather than by habit. A home office claim, vehicle costs claimed on the business-use share of actual expenses supported by a logbook — a per-kilometre rate is for a reasonable allowance paid to an employee, not a substitute for the business's own expense claim and registered plan contributions add to it. Schemes without commercial substance rarely survive review.