Expert Tax Accountants in Morden

CRA online filing for 2025 returns opened on 23 February 2026 and stays open until 29 January 2027. You can prepare a return before the service opens, but it cannot be transmitted, and slips such as T4s and T5s often arrive only in late February. Filing early makes sense if you expect a refund. If you expect a balance owing, you can still file early and pay by 30 April 2026.

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.

Most tax saving comes from a short list of levers: contributing to an RRSP or a spousal RRSP, holding investments inside a TFSA, FHSA or RESP so growth is sheltered, claiming every deduction and credit you actually qualify for, and splitting income where the rules allow, such as pension income splitting. Business owners add expense timing and salary versus dividend planning. Order matters, so decide before year end rather than at filing time.

Pay through your bank's online banking by adding the CRA as a payee and choosing the right account and year, through My Payment with a debit card, by pre-authorised debit scheduled in My Account, by credit card through a third-party provider that charges its own fee, or at a bank counter with a remittance voucher. For 2025 personal returns the payment deadline was 30 April 2026, including for the self-employed, and interest runs daily on anything unpaid after that.

Yes. A prior-year return can be filed at any time, and electronic filing stays open for several past years, so a 2024 return usually still goes through software rather than on paper. If a balance is owing, the late-filing penalty has already run to its twelve-month maximum and interest is still accumulating daily, so there is nothing to gain from waiting. If you cannot pay in full, file anyway and then arrange payment, because the penalty is tied to filing rather than paying.

Not exactly. A statement of account shows the balance as at the date it was produced, and interest compounds daily on anything still unpaid after that, while payments or reassessments since then are not reflected. Check the current balance in CRA My Account or My Business Account before paying, and pay the figure shown there. If part of the balance is disputed, pay the rest to stop interest running and raise the disputed portion separately.

No. A refund happens only when the tax withheld on your slips plus any instalments you paid exceed the tax you actually owe for the year. Employees often see refunds because payroll withholding ignores claims like RRSP contributions, tuition or medical expenses. People with self-employment, investment or several pension incomes frequently owe instead, because little or nothing was withheld. Filing settles the difference either way, and it is also what keeps benefit payments flowing.

Get a social insurance number, then gather every slip, including T4, T4A, T5, tuition and rent receipts, and file a T1 return for the year. Tax software approved by the CRA for electronic filing can send it, and a first-time filer can usually file online, though the CRA sometimes requires a paper return until it has a record of you. For the 2025 year the deadline was 30 April 2026, or 15 June for self-employment with payment still due 30 April.

Payroll works from an annualised figure. Take the taxable pay for the period, multiply by the number of pay periods in the year, subtract deductions to get projected annual taxable income, apply the federal brackets, subtract the credits the employee claimed on their personal tax credits return, then divide the resulting tax by the number of periods. Provincial tax follows the same path. The CRA's payroll deductions online calculator does all of it.

A pension paid out as a lump sum is taxable in the year you receive it, added to your other income and taxed at your graduated rates, with tax withheld when the payment is made. That withholding is only an instalment, so a large payment can still leave a balance owing in April. A direct transfer of an eligible amount to an RRSP or RRIF defers the tax until withdrawal. Retiring allowances have their own limited transfer room.

For the 2025 tax year the payment deadline is 30 April 2026, and that date applies even to self-employed filers who have until 15 June 2026 to file the return itself. Pay by online banking, the CRA's payment service, pre-authorised debit or through a financial institution. Corporations run on their own fiscal year: the T2 is due six months after year end, with the balance due two months after year end, or three months for an eligible CCPC claiming the small business deduction.

Largely no. PST in British Columbia and Saskatchewan and RST in Manitoba are retail sales taxes, not value-added taxes, so PST paid on business purchases is generally a cost rather than a credit. Relief comes from claiming an exemption at the time of purchase, such as goods bought for resale or certain production equipment, not from a return. Quebec's QST, 9.975% for 2025 and 2026, is different and is recoverable through input tax refunds, Quebec's equivalent of input tax credits.