r/cantax

Hey guys, just wondering if anyone has been through something similar.

I had capital gains from crypto in 2024 and ended up owing taxes, which I’m still paying off through installments.

In 2025 I had capital losses, so when my accountant filed my 2025 return he also submitted a T1A to carry the losses back to 2024 and offset the gains from that year.

My 2025 NOA came out about 2 months ago, but my 2024 return is still showing “reassessment in process.” Based on my calculations, once the losses are applied my 2024 balance owing should drop quite a bit.

For anyone who’s done a capital loss carryback before, how long did the reassessment take? Is 2+ months normal?

Thanks!

Hi everyone,

I’m an international student from Mexico moving to Canada in September 2026 to start a two-year master’s degree. I’ll be living in university residence during my studies.

I’m currently filling out the 2026 TD1, and I’m a bit confused about whether I should be considered a resident of Canada for tax purposes once I move to Canada. I’ll be arriving in September, so I’ll spend less than 183 days in Canada in 2026, but I’ll be living in Canada for my master’s, renting a room in university residence and opening a bank account.

Would I be considered a Canadian tax resident from the date I move to Canada?

I use to always just pay my taxes in April every year, and I did this year as well but I got an email about owing instalment payments in September, I called the cra and they said that they received my payment but the instalment payments are for individuals who have to pay more than 3000 net per year in taxes.

I have some expenses coming up in September and I don’t really think I can make that payment. Is the 3000 just for federal taxes ? Because i definitely don’t think I’ll owe more than 3000 after my Registered account contributions, tuition payments and medical expenses. What happens if I don’t make that payment and just pay my taxes in April? I’m sorry this is such a stupid question but this all feels overwhelming to me right now.

I owed over $6k last year (first time filing in many years as I was previously non-resident). I expected to have to pay instalments for Q3/Q4 but I haven’t received a reminder (nothing in my CRA account). Is it worth calling CRA? If I don’t get a reminder am I still obligated to pay the instalments? Do I just pay 25% of last year’s tax owing in each of Q3 and Q4 (or would it be 50% per quarter)?

Hello, wondering if anyone can provide some information regarding my tax issue.

I filed an emigrant tax return for 2025 via fax, expecting a refund due to unused tuition carryover amounts + the BC rent credit. I received an email from the CRA today saying it was assessed, but the official assessment date will be August 27th (the date when my official NOA will be available). There was an option to see the express (HTML) NOA, and it says there is no refund or tax owed. It also shows $0.00 in income, taxes paid, tuition amounts, etc. It's as if none of the information on my tax return was input at all.

I'm wondering if anyone else has experienced something like this before when filing a tax return via mail or fax. Could it be possible that the correct amounts will be reflected in my official NOA?

Thank you.

Hi everyone,

I’m approaching retirement and I'm looking for a robust planning tool to optimize my decumulation phase. Standard retirement calculators don't cut it for my situation.

My Setup:

• Large RRSP.
• Holding Corp (no operating income, just stock investments with unrealized capital gains).

My Goal:
I want to compare an early RRSP meltdown vs. drawing from the Corp first to see which provides the best after-tax outcome. I need to figure out exactly how much to withdraw from each bucket annually to optimize my lifetime spend/estate.

What I need the software to do:

• Set up side-by-side withdrawal scenarios (or better yet, automatically optimize the withdrawal order).
• Accurately calculate corporate tax integration (automatically tracking CDA and RDTOH as unrealized gains are realized).

Has anyone with a Holding Corp successfully used a specific software to model this out? What would you recommend I use?

Thanks!

What has everyone decided, is it taxable or not taxable?

As far I can see CRA hasn't issued their interpretation on this nor has the Tax Court of Canada issued a precedent ruling

My vote is it's not taxable

I use a non-CPA accounting firm, but I have friends who use a CPA and it has me second-guessing whether I’ve been missing out on benefits.

They’ve told me that they have been filed as single for years, even while married or living together. Apparently, when one spouse has a high income and the other has little or no income, filing as single can significantly increase CCB and other income-tested benefits, especially with multiple children. They were also advised that going on EI during the winter while listed as single with dependants could result in higher benefits.

From what they’ve described, this doesn’t sound like a one-time mistake but it appears to have been done for multiple families over a number of years.

Considering the accountant providing this advice is a CPA, I’m wondering whether I’ve somehow missed out on a significant amount of benefits over the years by having everything reported based on our actual marital status. My friends basically describe this as one of the advantages of having a “good accountant,” while mine isn’t a CPA. Mine tells me to this is not possible but maybe he's stuck on rules that aren't enforced?

Canada's tax system is backwards for families like ours.
I make approx 180k while my wife stays home and raises our two kids. We provide our own childcare, don't consume a daycare space, and keep those spaces available for families who need them.
Yet because all our income is on one person, we pay roughly 15-20k more in tax than a family earning the same household income split between two people.
For example, if we split $180K at 90/90 and take subsidized day care we'd come out well ahead. I broke down the math and my take home would be equal if my wife and I just went and got 70k a year jobs.
So we're effectively penalized because one parent chooses to stay home and raise the kids.
We aren't asking for special treatment. But if my wife providing full-time childcare herself saves the system a daycare space, why is our family financially worse off for it?
My wife isn't "not working." She's working full-time raising our children. She just doesn't get a T4 for it.

Cra asking to pre-pay next year’s tax in instalments.
How does this make sense.
The whole govt system is rigged and inhibits any growth for people who want to start their businesses or self employed individuals. All they want is you getting stuck in the cycle, unless you get lucky.

More of venting, but has anyone come across this, for people whose income is fluctuating because of new startups, does CRA defer this with general tax deadline to following year? Pls feel free to share experiences.

Hi. I got a notice from the CRA about paying a huge amount of money.

However, I was self employed for about 2 years but stopped around April and now earn a lot less as a full time.

My understanding is that CRA wants me to pre-pay the taxes that i would owe, but I definitely don't earn that much anymore. how do i pay that if i don't earn that anymore?

Hi there

Will my HST remittance form include sales I made before collecting HST. I started freelancing in 2024, and did not collect HST on that initial 30,000. Once I hit that threshold I filed my business and started collecting HST.

Will my HST remittance exclude those initial sales where I did not collect HST?

Recently received my Notice of Reassessment and wondered if anyone else has seen a paragraph like this:

After reviewing your request, we reduced the arrears interest charged on this return earlier from $0.00 to $152.62. Since we did this under the taxpayer relief provisions of the Income Tax Act, you cannot file an objection to this change.

The amount appears as a DR. I had time so I called and asked. Response: it’s a copy paste error.

Speaking around to my network of people who have corps for their professional consultancies (single person), concensus seems that all of their tax preparers go very high on business deductions (all sorts of personal/living expenses). I'm hearing it's not uncommon for 60-80% of their income to get offset by deductions, and scarcely a worry about CRA audit because audits are so rare ("don't mess with HST and payroll taxes and you'll be low risk of audit").

Is this in line with what tax pro's are seeing?

I've read the CRA's guidance on business deductions and I can't get to 60-80% of reasonable deductions for a full-time knowledge worker who's mostly working online from home.

Edit: I used income as sub for revenue, so yes business deductions of 60-80% of revenue. Think knowledge worker billing $200-300k annually and claiming deductions of $100k-200k, writing off all sorts of stuff. I've heard it from enough different sources to believe it. Looking for comments from tax pro's who have incorporated white collar clients on their views of (1) do they see this happening and (2) audit history

I’ve been reading more of the Income Tax Act lately — not exactly fun weekend reading — and I keep coming back to the same thought:

The Canadian tax system seems to give you more planning options when you own income-producing assets or a business than when all your income comes from a paycheque.

Three examples stood out to me.

First, paragraph 20(1)(c) may allow interest to be deducted when borrowed money is used for the purpose of earning income from a business or property.

So interest on money borrowed for a personal car is normally just a personal expense. But interest on money borrowed for an eligible income-producing investment may be deductible.

It’s not as simple as “borrow to invest and deduct everything,” obviously. The use of the borrowed money has to be traceable, there has to be an income-earning purpose, and borrowing for registered accounts like a TFSA or RRSP generally doesn’t qualify.

Still, same debt, very different tax treatment depending on what the money is used for.

Second, only half of a capital gain is currently included in taxable income. The proposed increase was eventually cancelled, so the enacted inclusion rate remains one-half.

That doesn’t mean capital gains are “taxed at half your normal rate” in every situation, which is how people sometimes explain it. But compared with employment income, capital gains still receive more favourable treatment.

And third, owners who sell qualifying small-business corporation shares may be able to use the Lifetime Capital Gains Exemption. The limit is substantial, although the qualification rules are much more complicated than just owning an incorporated business.

Maybe I’m looking at this too simply, but the pattern seems fairly clear:

• Employment income is generally taxed as it is earned.
• Borrowing costs may become deductible when connected to eligible income-producing assets.
• Capital gains receive partial inclusion.
• Certain qualifying business owners may receive an additional exemption when they eventually sell.

I’m not saying everyone should borrow money, start a corporation or turn their life into a tax strategy. In fact, doing any of those things purely for tax reasons is probably a bad idea.

But it does make me wonder whether our tax system quietly encourages people to move from earning income to owning assets.

Do you think this is intentional economic policy, or simply a collection of tax rules that happens to favour asset owners?

And for people who understand Canadian tax better than I do: what important limitation am I missing here?

My mother received a letter in the mail saying she needs to make two instalment payments in September and December of over $2,000 each?! The letter said this was because her 2025 Tax Return had her owing over $3,000 so they're asking for 2026's money ahead of time?

Two things about that:
1: We paid off the entire 2025 Tax amount she owed, so it's not like she owed any money for 2025 to begin with.

2: The only reason why she owed so much money for 2025 was because she was on EI for most of the year and either they didn't (or we forgot) take any money off those amounts for taxes, so we had to pay it all at once.

My mother currently for the past several months is retired. She lives solely off of CPP and OAP payments per month (Which she set up to have tax deducted off them). Not to mention she qualifies for the Disability Tax Credit. There's no way she could possibly need to pay so much again for 2026.

Please tell me we have some kind of recourse, we're honestly kind of panicking here.

CRA has given me trouble about box 32 and 33 trips claimed. They are saying that unless there is a number in box 33, I am not entitled to claim any medical trip. This seems to be contrary to the ITA and every publication I have seen on Northern Residents deductions where medical trips are unlimited.

No major employer seems to use box 33 for T4s either, both my spouse and I were employed by the government and many friends in major private sector companies confirmed the same. No employer pays an allowance specifically for medical trips, just a general one that is for personal or medical.

The medical trips were for childbirth and for dental as neither service was available in the community I live in.

Is there any interpretation or other materials I can look at to assist in my appeal? I have the feeling my claims were given little to no review time as the review letter is rife with typos and seems rushed.

[ontario] Previously Quarter remitter recently switched to monthly (as of start of the quarter). Need to send remittance by 15th or 17th since that is a monday however the earliest I can is 19th via PAD.

Decided to instead try via my personal account and then reimburse myself from the business but when I tried to cancel the PAD I can't as it is "less than" 5 business days........

Anyway, is it worth the chase to call CRA and plead or is this fine? 1 person payroll corporation.

I saw an ad for a company offering to help reduce taxes. Their main pitch was to borrow some amount of money to invest in dividend paying stocks (they named RBC as an example) and to claim the interest here to reduce overall taxable income while taking advantage of the lower inclusion rate for capital gains taxes to come out positive overall.

That all sounds too good to be true: Obviously there are market risks, but I'm more worried about CRA risks: Does just the fact that a stock pays out a small amount of dividends suffice to qualify it according to the CRA rules? Surely a stock that (for example) paid 0.001% of investment as dividends would not quality here?

Hey everyone,

I got a letter in the mail from CRA today stating the above title, but as far as I'm aware I reported everything properly. My investment managers give me all the appropriate information and I submit that yearly without issue.

I'm just curious how 'bad' this is, how much of a headache, etc.

Also, they requested a Schedule 3 and a Schedule 7 form in regards to the 2024 tax year, are these standard forms that would have been prepared that year or are they special ones in regards to this investigation?

I've touched base with my accountant and will talk to my investment people if need be, but I'm just looking for some generalities in the meantime. Thanks!