Economical SR&ED Claim Preparation for Canadian Businesses

For the 2025 tax year the filing and payment deadline is 30 April 2026. If you or your spouse carried on a business, the return itself is due 15 June 2026, but any balance owing is still due 30 April 2026. Interest runs on unpaid amounts after the payment deadline, and a late-filed return with a balance owing also attracts a late-filing penalty. Filing on time keeps benefit and credit payments flowing.

CRA online filing for 2025 returns opened 23 February 2026 and closes 29 January 2027. Most people file between late February and the 30 April 2026 deadline, and that stretch is what tax season refers to. You can gather documents and prepare a return earlier, but it cannot be sent electronically before the system opens. Employment and investment slips such as T4 and T5 are issued by payers early in the year, and the CRA's Auto-fill service can pull the ones it already holds once you have set up My Account.

Your marginal tax rate is the rate on your next dollar of income, not on your income as a whole. Federally for 2026 that is 14%, 20.5%, 26%, 29% or 33% depending on the bracket you have reached, and your province's rate stacks on top, so an Ontario earner in the 26% federal band adds the Ontario rate for their own band. The two sets of thresholds rarely line up, so add the two rates together.

Yes. Severance is employment income, so your employer withholds income tax before paying you. Lump sums are withheld at flat lump-sum rates that are often below your real marginal rate, so a large payout can still leave a balance owing at filing time. If part of the payment is a retiring allowance, some of it may be transferred directly to an RRSP and taxed later. Check the CRA's payroll deductions and lump-sum withholding pages.

There is no single rate. On purchases, GST is 5%, with HST of 13% in Ontario, 15% in New Brunswick, Newfoundland and Labrador and Prince Edward Island, and 14% in Nova Scotia since 1 April 2025; Quebec adds 9.975% QST, British Columbia 7% PST, Saskatchewan 6% PST and Manitoba 7% RST. On income, the 2026 federal brackets begin at 14% and rise through 20.5%, 26% and 29% to 33%, with provincial tax charged on top.

Two things drive the bill: the assessed value of that specific property and the rate the municipality sets. Assessment reflects size, age, lot, condition, renovations and recent comparable sales, so neighbouring houses rarely match. Rates differ because each council raises what its own budget needs from its own assessment base, and property class matters, with residential, multi-residential and commercial treated differently. A local education levy and area charges for services such as water or transit widen the gap.

Yes, as a deduction rather than a credit. Child care costs you paid so you could work, run a business or attend school are deducted on your T1, usually by the lower-income spouse, with limits set by each child's age and status and capped by a share of earned income. Keep receipts showing the provider's name and, for an individual caregiver, their social insurance number. Day camps can qualify; recreational lessons do not.

For account-specific questions, the CRA will discuss your own file once you have verified your identity, and its individual and business enquiry lines cover balances, slips and deadlines. For advice on what to claim or how to structure something, speak to a tax preparer. If you want the filing handled for you, taxfilings.ca agrees a fixed fee before any work starts, and you pay after the service. Call +1 (416) 619-0068.

Add every source of income for the year: employment income from T4 slips, self-employment profit from a T2125, investment income from T5 slips, pensions and other taxable amounts. That gives total income. Subtract deductions such as RRSP contributions, union dues, child care and carrying charges to reach net income, then the remaining deductions that apply to you for taxable income. Tax is then calculated on that figure at federal and provincial rates, and credits reduce the tax itself.

Interest on an ordinary savings account is fully taxable in the year it is credited, and the bank normally reports it on a T5, though no slip is issued for small amounts of interest — the income is reportable either way. No exemption exists to claim against it. The only real answer is to hold the money in a registered account instead: a TFSA, where the interest is never taxed, or an RRSP or FHSA, where it is sheltered until withdrawal. Interest in a joint account is taxed to whoever supplied the funds.

Most grants are taxable. A grant received by a business is normally included in income, or applied against the cost of the asset or expense it funded, which reduces future deductions instead of creating income now. Grants tied to study can differ, because a student may be able to use the scholarship exemption. The payer usually issues an information slip, and the treatment follows what the grant was for, so keep the funding agreement with your records.

A criminal record check you pay for to get or keep a job is not deductible, because an employee may only claim the narrow set of employment expenses the tax rules allow and this is not among them. A business that pays for checks on staff or contractors may deduct the cost as an ordinary operating expense, and so may a self-employed person who must hold a current check to do the work being billed. Keep the receipt either way.