The April 30 Filing Deadline

Are you confused about the April 30 Canadian tax deadline? Most of our clients are, so I thought I would make a blog post out of it!

If you are not self-employed your filing deadline is April 30. You can file your 2007 tax return late, but if you have a balance owing after April 30 interest and penalties will be added by Canada Revenue Agency.

If you can't get your tax return done on time, it's a good idea to estimate your balance owing and make a payment to CRA on or before April 30. See this page for instructions on how to go about paying CRA.

The amount of interest CRA charges varies every three months. Late penalties are typically 5% of the unpaid amount, plus 1% of the unpaid amount for each full month that it is late, to a maximum of 12 months (more information).

If you are self-employed filing after April 30 isn't so bad. If you owe money on your tax return CRA will charge interest on the overdue amount, but late penalties are not charged unless the amount is still unpaid on June 15.

If you are a GST Registrant, any GST remittances you owe CRA for last year are also due April 30. Interest and late penalties are applied to outstanding amounts after that date.

You have to make GST payments using Form GST34 (personalized) or GST62 (non personalized). These forms are available directly from CRA–they can't be downloaded from their website. You might have a form in your files that was sent to you by CRA. This page has instructions on paying GST amounts owing.

In certain situations CRA can assess an additional late filing penalty. For example, if you own foreign property that cost more than $100,000, and you don't file a return by April 30, CRA will penalize you $25/day up to a maximum of $2,500.

If you do make a payment of income tax or GST, it is important to let your tax preparer know how much you paid so he/she can include it as a credit on your return(s).