Tax return (Canada)

Normally, Canadian Individual tax returns for any specific year must be filed by April 30 of the following year. There is no provision for generally extending this deadline, but there are a few exceptions.

• Tax returns for self-employed individuals and their spouses must be filed by June 15 of the following year. However, any GST/HST owing for the period is due April 30.
• Tax returns for deceased individuals must be filed by the normal filing deadline or 6 months after the date of death, whichever comes later. Example: Mary dies on January 30, 2004; Her 2003 return is due on July 30, 2004 (six months later) and her 2004 return is due on April 30, 2005 (normal filing deadline). This provision is also extended to the surviving spouse.
• Tax returns for non-residents electing to file under section 217 are due June 30 of the following year.
• By virtue of the Interpretation Act the due date of all individual returns is moved to the next business day when the normal due date falls on a Sunday or Holiday. Although ministerial orders are also used to apply this to Saturday due dates, it is not a legal requirement.
• The Federal Finance Minister may extend the deadline in cases of emergency situations such as floods, etc.

Canadian federal tax returns are filed with the Canada Revenue Agency.

In addition, the return plays a role in voter registration by including a checkbox asking if the signee if they are willing to have their personal contact information included on a national voter registry which is accessible by Elections Canada and its provincial equivalents.

Provincial returns

All provinces have their own Income Tax Acts, but most employ a system of Federal-Provincial agreements whereby the tax is collected by the Federal government. Only the Quebec provincial government collects its own personal income tax. Alberta, Ontario and Quebec all collect their own corporate income tax. Filing deadlines generally match those of the federal government. Quebec tax returns are filed with the Ministère du Revenu du Québec.

Tax return software

There is various commercial software available to file tax returns such as Cantax, Taxnic, Taxprep, Profile, UFile, TurboTax (previously called QuickTax, it was renamed for the 2010 tax year) and Quicken, among others. There is also non-commercial tax preparation software (freeware) available such as UDoTaxes and StudioTax (which also supports Quebec provincial tax returns as of the 2010 version).

Tax returns may be filed online at no charge through a government service run by the CRA called NETFILE.

See also

• Comparison of Canadian tax software
• EFILE
• T1 General (form used for individual filing)