Expert Tax Accountants in St. Albert

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.

Canadian income tax is built up in layers. You total your income for the year, subtract the deductions you qualify for to arrive at taxable income, then apply the federal brackets and your province's brackets to that figure. Each bracket rate applies only to the income sitting inside it, so earning more never retaxes the dollars below. Non-refundable credits, starting with the basic personal amount, come off the tax afterwards. Look up the CRA bracket table for the tax year you are filing.

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.

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.

Sign in to My Account and open the sections for filed returns and notices, where past returns, notices of assessment, slips and carry-forward amounts can be viewed, printed or saved. Without online access, ask the CRA by phone or in writing at the tax centre shown on your notice, or ask whoever prepared the return for their copy. Keep your own records six years from the end of the last tax year they relate to.

Two things move a property tax bill: the rate the municipality sets in its annual budget, and the assessed value of your property. A reassessment can raise your share even when the rate holds steady, if your property gained value faster than others in the municipality. Renovations that add living space or finished area can lift the assessment, while ordinary maintenance and landscaping normally do not. You can challenge an assessment, but only within the deadline printed on the notice.

A T4E is the statement of Employment Insurance and other benefits. Service Canada issues one for each year in which EI was paid, covering regular, sickness, maternity, parental, caregiving or fishing benefits, and it shows the total received, the income tax already withheld and any amount to be repaid. Those figures go on the personal return for that year. Benefits paid under a different program come on their own slip.

Yes. Rent from a room in your home is taxable and is reported as rental income on your T1. You may deduct a reasonable share of expenses such as utilities, insurance, mortgage interest, property tax and repairs, prorated by the space rented and the part of the year it was rented. Claiming capital cost allowance on the building can put part of your principal residence exemption at risk, so most homeowners do not. Keep receipts six years.

Once the notice of assessment shows a refund, direct deposit normally follows shortly after; a cheque takes longer because it travels by mail. Most of the wait is the assessment itself, not the payment, which is why the guideline for an online return is about two weeks from filing to money in the account. If nothing arrives, confirm your banking details in CRA My Account and check whether the refund was applied to an outstanding balance.

Almost always, yes. A lump sum from a registered pension, a commuted value, a deferred profit sharing plan or an unlocked locked-in account is income in the year you receive it, and tax is withheld before you get the money. A direct transfer of an eligible amount into an RRSP or RRIF can defer the tax, but it must move plan to plan rather than through your bank account. Ask for the transfer paperwork before the payout is processed.

Spousal support is deductible to the payer and taxable to the recipient when it is a periodic amount paid under a written separation agreement or court order, and both people report the same figure. Lump sum settlements, property division and legal fees to negotiate the arrangement generally do not qualify. Child support under most orders and agreements now in place is neither deductible nor taxable. Register the order with the CRA and keep every payment record.

All of it. Tips are fully taxable, so there is no percentage a server is allowed to declare instead of the full amount, whether it arrived by card, in cash, or through a tip pool. There is no special rate either: tips are added to your other income and taxed at your marginal rate. Controlled tips paid out by the employer appear on your T4; direct and pooled tips usually do not, so keep a daily record.