Affordable Transfer Pricing Functional Analysis for Canadian Businesses

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.

A refund is the tax already paid minus the tax actually owed. Add the income tax withheld on your slips to any instalments you paid, work out tax payable on your total income after deductions and credits, and the difference comes back if the first figure is larger. Large refunds usually trace to over-withholding on employment income, RRSP contributions, or credits transferred to you. Run the numbers through the CRA's or a commercial estimator before you file.

For the 2026 tax year, federal rates are 14% on the first $58,523 of taxable income, 20.5% from there to $117,045, 26% to $181,440, 29% to $258,482, and 33% above that. Each rate applies only to the income inside its own band, so moving into a higher bracket does not raise the tax on the income below it. Provincial or territorial tax is added on top.

There is no single percentage. Your employer applies the federal withholding table plus the table for your province or territory, using pay frequency, your annual rate of pay and the amounts claimed on your federal and provincial TD1 forms, then adds CPP contributions and EI premiums until the annual maximums are met. Pension contributions, union dues and benefit premiums come off separately. The CRA's Payroll Deductions Online Calculator reproduces the exact figures shown on your stub.

Yes. A personal T1 can be prepared and filed by the taxpayer through CRA-certified software, and a straightforward year of employment slips and a few credits is manageable. Corporate filing is harder: a T2 has to reconcile to financial statements, and for tax years beginning after 2023 electronic filing is mandatory for essentially every corporation regardless of gross revenue. Self-employment, rental property, investments sold during the year, a move between provinces and foreign income are where self-filed returns most often go wrong.

Not indefinitely. Property tax is collected by your municipality, which charges interest on arrears and can eventually register a tax arrears certificate and sell the property under provincial tax-sale rules. The permitted period of arrears is set by provincial legislation and varies, so ask your municipality for its schedule and payment options. Municipal arrears are separate from anything owing to the CRA, and paying one does not clear the other.

Start with deductions that lower taxable income: RRSP contributions, childcare, eligible moving expenses, employment expenses your employer certifies, and interest on money borrowed to invest. Then claim credits, including tuition, medical expenses, donations and pension income splitting. Rental owners deduct mortgage interest, property tax, insurance, utilities and repairs on the rented portion, while improvements are capitalised and depreciated instead. Income splitting with family members runs into attribution rules, so get the structure checked first.

File as soon as you can. If you owe, the late-filing penalty is 5% of the balance owing plus 1% for each full month the return is late, to a maximum of 12 months, and compound interest runs on the unpaid amount. If you are due a refund there is no late-filing penalty, but benefit and credit payments such as the Canada child benefit can pause until the return is assessed. The 2025 deadline was 30 April 2026.

Yes, but the payments stop until your return is assessed. The credit is calculated from the filed return, so a missing year pauses the quarterly deposits; once the return is processed the CRA recalculates and normally pays the missed quarters retroactively. Several prior years can be picked up if you catch up on old returns. File even with no income, and keep your address and marital status current, because both change the amount.

Generally no. Exports of goods and most services supplied to a non-resident are zero-rated, so no tax is charged, you still report the sale, and you still claim input tax credits on your costs. Exceptions apply, including services relating to real property in Canada and supplies to a non-resident who is registered here. Within Canada the place-of-supply rules follow the customer, so an Ontario business billing a Quebec customer charges 5% GST rather than 13% HST, using 2026 rates.

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.

Interest on a student line of credit or an ordinary bank loan cannot be claimed. The student loan interest credit applies only to interest on loans issued under the Canada Student Loans Act, the Canada Student Financial Assistance Act, a provincial or territorial student loan programme or similar legislation. A line of credit stays ineligible even where the money went to tuition, and rolling a government loan into a line of credit ends eligibility permanently.