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The choice to strike by the Public Service Alliance of Canada – Union of Taxation Workers (PSAC-UTE) involving some 39,000 Canada Income Company workers couldn’t have come at a worse time for taxpayers, tens of millions of whom are nonetheless scrambling to finish and file their 2022 tax returns by the submitting deadline.

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However lest you panic, right here’s a fast information on how one can file on time regardless of the strike, and what to anticipate by way of CRA’s processing time and lowered companies.

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No prolonged deadline

Regardless of the strike, the CRA has said it at present has no plans to increase the overall tax submitting deadline, which falls on Could 1, 2023. (The traditional April 30 deadline falls on a Sunday, so we get an additional day this 12 months.) For taxpayers who’ve self-employment revenue or who’ve a partner or common-law accomplice with self-employment revenue, the overall submitting deadline is June 15, 2023, however any tax owing remains to be due by Could 1, 2023.

“Canadians ought to take steps to make sure their return is filed by Could 1, 2023, together with cost for any steadiness owing,” the company mentioned.

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In the event you file your tax return late and have a steadiness owing, you’ll be charged a late-filing penalty. Submitting late also can delay your future profit and credit score funds. The late-filing penalty is 5 per cent of your 2022 steadiness owing, plus an extra one per cent for every full month that you simply file after the due date, to a most of 12 months.

If, nevertheless, the CRA has charged you a late-filing penalty for 2019, 2020 or 2021 and has issued a proper demand so that you can file a return, your late-filing penalty for 2022 doubles to 10 per cent of your steadiness owing, plus an extra two per cent for every full month that you simply file after the due date, to a most of 20 months.

That’s why even when you can’t pay your steadiness owing on time, you must nonetheless file on time to keep away from being charged the late-filing penalty. The CRA additionally expenses non-deductible arrears curiosity, compounded day by day, on the prescribed fee, which is at present 9 per cent for overdue taxes.

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The CRA mentioned it’s persevering with to simply accept all tax returns through the strike. Tax returns which might be filed electronically, which is almost all of returns, will proceed to be processed routinely by the system “at once.” The excellent news is that if the CRA owes you a refund, the company pays you refund curiosity at a fee of seven per cent, compounded day by day, from Could 31 (when you file on time), or beginning 30 days after submitting, when you file late.

As of April 17, the CRA reported that round 17 million Canadians have already filed their 2022 tax returns. Of these, over 94 per cent have been filed electronically, with the remaining six per cent filed on paper. By comparability, the CRA processed practically 29.5 million private tax returns for the 2021 tax 12 months, which means that based mostly on final 12 months’s numbers, greater than 40 per cent of taxpayers nonetheless must file this tax season.

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On the intense facet, when you haven’t began getting ready your return, all of your tax slips needs to be obtainable on-line utilizing the CRA’s Auto-fill my return characteristic, which stays unaffected through the strike. Launched in 2016, Auto-fill permits people and approved tax preparers to routinely fill in components of their return with info the CRA has obtainable on the time of the request, resembling sure T-slips, registered retirement financial savings plan contributions and far more. To make use of the service, you have to be registered for the CRA My Account program and be utilizing NETFILE-certified software program that provides the Auto-fill characteristic. This tax season, there are greater than 25 completely different licensed software program packages and on-line internet choices to select from.

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You may as well go onto the CRA’s My Account to obtain a PDF record of slips that the CRA has acquired for you. Take note, nevertheless, that almost all, however not all T-slips are on-line. For instance, inexplicably, the T4PS slip, Assertion of Workers Revenue Sharing Plan Allocations and Funds, just isn’t obtainable on-line, which comes as a shock to many workers of enormous publicly traded firms which have profit-sharing share plans, who might neglect that they should manually enter this information every year.

CRA companies

What if it is advisable to attain the CRA to check out some private info earlier than submitting? Good luck.

“Canadians ought to count on that some CRA companies will likely be delayed or unavailable,” the CRA mentioned in an April 19 press launch. However the company additionally assured Canadians that profit funds will likely be “prioritized,” and that the month-to-month tax-free Canada little one profit funds will proceed to be issued, as scheduled, for certified households.

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Jonathan Ruben, a Toronto-based accountant whose agency information lots of of private tax returns every tax season, mentioned the CRA strike might hamper his potential to get pertinent tax info associated to tax filings, resembling a brand new shopper’s carry-forward info from prior years. “There are conditions the place we do attain out to the CRA and now there may be no person to name, and no person to reply,” he mentioned.

Canadians ought to count on that some CRA companies will likely be delayed or unavailable

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The CRA is prioritizing calls associated to learn funds the company administers, which embrace revenue tax enquiries associated to learn entitlements. However count on elevated wait instances to achieve a CRA service consultant.

Instead, the CRA is encouraging Canadians to make use of the CRA’s on-line companies, such because the CRA My Account, MyBusiness Account or Characterize a Shopper, to handle your private or enterprise tax affairs or these of your purchasers.

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On a private observe, the CRA strike is especially discouraging as I’ve but to listen to something again from the CRA after submitting copies of my 2021 work-from-home bills and charitable donation receipts after being instructed to ship them “inside 30 days” of the CRA’s evaluate letter. That was six months in the past, in October 2022.

Jamie Golombek, CPA, CA, CFP, CLU, TEP, is the managing director, Tax & Property Planning with CIBC Non-public Wealth in Toronto. Jamie.Golombek@cibc.com.

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