Expert Tax Accountants in Trail

Most people pay through online or telephone banking, adding the CRA as a payee and choosing the exact account and year, such as a personal balance owing or an instalment. The alternatives are CRA My Payment with a debit card, pre-authorised debit scheduled in My Account, a credit card or e-transfer through a third-party provider that charges its own fee, or paying at your bank with a remittance voucher. For the 2025 tax year the balance was due 30 April 2026.

GST is 5% in British Columbia for 2026, the same federal rate that applies everywhere in Canada. BC is not a harmonised province, so that 5% GST is charged alongside a separate 7% provincial sales tax, giving 12% on most taxable purchases. The two taxes have different exemption lists, which is why some items show 5% only. GST-registered businesses can recover the GST they pay on business inputs.

GST in British Columbia is 5% for 2026, the same federal rate as everywhere in Canada and unchanged since 1 January 2008. BC also charges a separate 7% provincial sales tax, so most taxable sales come to 12% in total. The two are separate systems: GST is registered and filed with the CRA, PST with the province, and some goods and services are exempt from PST while the 5% GST still applies.

Download them from the forms and publications section of canada.ca, where current and prior-year federal and provincial forms sit as printable PDFs. During filing season paper packages are also stocked at some Canada Post and Service Canada outlets, and the CRA will post a package if you order one by phone. Filing software completes the same forms behind the scenes, so most people never need the printed version at all.

Payroll treats each cheque as though you earned that amount every period, so a bonus, overtime, retroactive raise or an extra shift makes the cheque look like a higher annual income and more tax comes off it. A change in pay frequency, a new TD1, or a taxable benefit added mid-year does the same. CPP and EI stop for the year once their maximums are reached, so take-home often rises later on. Your return reconciles the total.

Three deductions dominate. Income tax, federal and provincial, withheld against the credits you claimed. CPP at 5.95% in 2026 on pensionable pay above the $3,500 exemption up to the $74,600 ceiling, plus CPP2 at 4% on earnings to $85,000. EI at $1.63 per $100 of insurable earnings in 2026, to maximum insurable earnings of $68,900. Employers match CPP and pay 1.4 times your EI. Quebec runs its own pension and parental plans.

GST is 5% in Vancouver, and British Columbia adds 7% provincial sales tax, so most retail purchases carry 12% in total (2025 and 2026). There is no HST in British Columbia. The two taxes are separate, calculated on the same pre-tax price, and PST does not apply to everything GST does. Restaurant food, for example, is generally GST only, while liquor carries a higher provincial rate.

The basic Canada Education Savings Grant pays 20% of your RESP contributions, to a maximum of $500 a year per child and $7,200 over that child's lifetime, and those are the 2026 figures. Twenty per cent of $2,500 gives the full $500. Unused grant room carries forward, so a catch-up year can draw up to $1,000. Grant can be paid up to and including the end of the calendar year the child turns 17, but for the years the child turns 16 and 17 it is paid only where the plan already has a savings history — at least $2,000 contributed and not withdrawn before the end of the year the child turned 15, or at least $100 contributed in each of any four earlier years — so opening an RESP late can forfeit the last two years of grant.

Not everyone owes income tax, though almost everyone touches the system. Income tax starts once taxable income passes your personal credits; the federal basic personal amount for 2026 is $16,452, tapering to $14,829 at higher net income. Filing still matters with nothing owing, because benefits and credits are calculated from the return. Sales tax, payroll contributions and fuel or tobacco taxes reach people who pay no income tax at all.

British Columbia PST is 7% (2025 and 2026) and applies to most goods, to software, and to a defined list of services including legal services, telecommunications, accommodation, and repairs or maintenance of taxable goods. Groceries, most services, children's clothing and residential rent fall outside it. Vehicles, boats and aircraft follow their own rules. PST is not a value-added tax, so there are no input credits to recover it; check the province's PST bulletins for your item.

A reimbursement of actual travel costs you paid, supported by receipts, is not income. A flat travel allowance is generally taxable unless it is a reasonable per-kilometre allowance for business driving; for 2026 the CRA's reasonable rate is 73 cents per kilometre for the first 5,000 kilometres and 67 cents after that, four cents more in the territories. Allowances above a reasonable amount, or paid without a distance record, are added to your T4 income.

Track it in CRA My Account. A change requested through Change my return, or on a paper T1-ADJ, sits in process until a notice of reassessment is issued, and any extra refund follows that notice rather than arriving before it. Adjustments are handled separately from the original assessment: a routine change requested online runs on the same short CRA service standard as an online-filed return, while a complex change, or one sent on paper, takes considerably longer. The CRA calculates any refund interest owed to you automatically.