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There are a lot of headaches that come with tax season. For some people, it’s getting all their T-slips. For others, it’s knowing their contribution room. Those with children want to find out if they’re receiving all their eligible benefits, and some people want to receive their tax refund as soon as possible.
There exists a wonderful solution to all of these challenges, and that’s registering for an online account with the CRA (Canada Revenue Agency). When you register for a CRA online account, it provides a lot of benefits that makes your life much easier. Gone are the days where everything had to be done via physical copies. Welcome to the 21st century! Let’s learn about the advantages you’ll have after registering:
Check the status of your benefits payments
If you qualify for any government benefits, the CRA account will be a great resource for you. It will let you see which benefits you are currently receiving, and it will even show you the past payment history to your bank account. Make sure you’re getting the benefits for which you’re eligible!
Access all of your T-slips in a digitized version
During tax season you’ll receive these various different tax slips. A T-4 slip is for your employment income, and if you have any money made from investments and trusts or dividends, you’ll also receive a T-3 or T-5 slip. The companies that issue these T slips are required by law to mail them to you by a certain date, and to submit a copy to the CRA. The issue comes if you have an incorrect address on file, or if you’ve recently moved. In short, you’ll have to deal with all the problems of traditional mail. On your CRA account, you’ll be able to access all of these slips in digital form! This way, you won’t have to mess around with all the pieces of mail anymore.
Find out your RRSP and TFSA contribution room
Have you been taking advantage of these registered accounts? We certainly hope so, because they provide great tax benefits. One challenge some people may have is that there is a finite contribution room, and if you go over it, you’ll be penalized. What is your personal contribution room? Well, you wouldn’t know that unless you had your last year’s Notice of Assessment (NoA) handy. With the CRA account, you’ll be able to look at your NoA and check your contribution rooms easily!
Find information on all your previous tax returns
It’s a huge pain to have to keep lots of physical documents on hand. Another benefit provided by the CRA account is that it keeps track of all your previous tax returns. This will be very useful when you need to access your previous years’ documents, such as when you are applying for a mortgage and they want to see your previous income.
Filing taxes will be easier with integration
One of the best features is that it makes filing your taxes even easier. The CRA has an integration feature with lots of tax filing software, such as turbo tax. What happens is that while you’re filing your taxes with your chosen software, you can input your CRA log-in information, and then it will automatically retrieve all the information from your CRA account and automatically fill it all in for you, making your tax filing even easier! Just double check and make sure it’s right, though!
If you don’t have a CRA online account yet, and want to make your life easier, we strongly recommend setting it up as soon as you can. Head on over to the CRA website and get to it!
FlexFi Inc. is not a financial advisory firm.
This article is for informational purposes only and is not a substitute for individualized professional advice.
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