Low-Cost Trust Account Number Registration for Trusts and Estates in Canada

File a T1 return for the year, sending it electronically with CRA-certified software or mailing a paper return. Gather your slips and receipts first and check them against the ones listed in My Account. For the 2025 tax year the filing and payment deadline was 30 April 2026, or 15 June 2026 to file if you or your spouse were self-employed, with payment still due 30 April 2026. CRA online filing for 2025 returns closes 29 January 2027.

Sign in to CRA My Account, or use the CRA's mobile app, where the return shows as received, in process or assessed, and the refund amount and payment date appear once it has been assessed. The CRA also runs an automated telephone service giving the same information. A representative you have authorised through Represent a Client can check it for you. If the status has not moved past the published processing time, the return is probably under review.

A return filed online is usually assessed and refunded in about two weeks, as long as your direct deposit details and address are current in CRA My Account and the return is not selected for review. A non-resident return can take up to sixteen weeks. Amounts you owe the CRA or another government program are applied against the refund first. My Account shows the assessment and the refund once issued, which is the quickest way to check.

Generally no. Fees for wills, powers of attorney, estate freezes and succession advice are personal or capital in nature, so they are not deductible against your income. Narrow exceptions exist: amounts incurred to earn business or property income, or costs an estate or trust pays to administer property, may be claimable. Fees tied to acquiring or disposing of capital property usually adjust the cost base or proceeds instead. Ask for an itemised invoice so each part can be tested.

A trust can move income to family members in lower brackets, spread access to the lifetime capital gains exemption on a share sale, and hold shares for succession. The attribution rules and the tax on split income remove most simple splitting with a spouse or minor children. Trusts pay tax at the top personal rate on income they keep, face a deemed disposition of their property every twenty-one years, and must file a T3 naming beneficiaries. Take advice before settling one.

TPS is simply the French name for the GST, taxe sur les produits et services. It is the same federal tax at the same rate, 5% for 2025 and 2026. In Quebec you will also see TVQ, the French name for QST, at 9.975% applied to the pre-GST price, giving a combined 14.975%. Quebec receipts usually show both lines separately, and Revenu Quebec administers the returns for both taxes there.

A return filed online is usually assessed within about two weeks, and the notice of assessment appears in My Account as soon as that happens. Some returns are held for a review of slips, receipts or credits, which adds time without meaning anything is wrong. A non-resident return can take up to sixteen weeks. Register for My Account and email notifications so you see the notice the day it issues.

Often they do, but not because of a bonus for low income. A refund is simply the tax withheld from your pay minus the tax you actually owe, so when income sits near or below the amounts you can claim, most of what was deducted comes back. Refundable credits such as the GST/HST credit and the Canada workers benefit can be paid to you even when no tax was withheld at all. None of it arrives unless you file.

Each province sets its own top bracket, which sits on top of the federal top bracket, so the highest combined marginal rate depends on where you live, and both rates and thresholds are adjusted each year. Look up the current combined table for your province rather than relying on a single national figure. It is a marginal rate: only the income above the threshold is taxed at it, never your whole income.

That figure is your payroll deduction rate, not a tax bracket. Canada's federal rates for 2026 start at 14% and rise through 20.5%, 26% and 29% to 33%, and what leaves your cheque blends federal and provincial tax with CPP at 5.95% and EI at $1.63 per $100 of insurable earnings for 2026. Payroll also annualises each cheque, so a bonus or overtime period is taxed as if every period looked the same. Filing squares it up.

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.

A refund is applied against any balance you owe before anything is paid out, so an older amount owing is cleared first and only the remainder reaches you. Benefit and credit payments can be offset the same way. Where this year's return calculates a refund larger than the outstanding balance, the difference is paid to you. Filing online with direct deposit is the quickest route for whatever is left over.