CRA Tax Return Statistics For The 2016 Personal Tax-Filing Season

CRA Releases Income Tax Return Statistics For The 2016 Personal Tax-Filing Season

The Canada Revenue Agency has released information about the 2006 T1 tax return filing season. It said that 26,233,828 T1 returns were received from 2016-02-15 to 2016-05-30. 85% of those returns were filed electronically, with 56% filed by accountants through efile and the remaining 29% by individuals through netfile. Most of the filed returns, 59%, resulted in refunds in an average amount of $1,682. Nil returns amounted to 22% of the total, and the remaining 19% of the T1 returns had taxes owing. The percentage of paper returns has been declining steadily from 38% just 5 years ago in 2011 to 15% this year.

All personal tax filings are not yet completed since the deadline for self employed individuals to file their t1 returns is June 15.

Any Canadian who misses the filing deadline will be subject to a tax late filing penalty of 5% of taxes owing, plus 1% of the unpaid tax balance per month. These tax penalties double for repeat late filers.

Canadians who have not filed personal tax returns for several years may be eligible for the CRA voluntary disclosure program (VDP). If they file the returns through a Canadian tax lawyer with the tax amnesty office, not as a regularly submitted tax return, there will be no late filing penalties, no prosecution for unfiled tax returns, and there may be a reduction of interest owing for some of the years. The main requirement to be eligible for this program is that the taxpayer approaches CRA before the tax department sends a request to file returns, or commences any audit or investigation of the taxpayer. In other words, as the name of the program implies, the taxpayer must approach CRA on a voluntary basis. For advice as to eligibility for the voluntary disclosure program contact our experienced Toronto tax lawyers.