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Your CRA My Account may hold uncashed cheques, credits, and tax info you’ve missed. Here are 5 key areas to get familiar with.
The Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) has moved to online mail for most of its correspondence with businesses. This signals a transition to electronic communication that may be coming in the future for all taxpayers. As more people sign up for the My Account service, here are some of the key things you can find in the portal.
The CRA has reportedly issued about $1.4 billion in taxpayer refunds and benefits that remain uncashed. And they are genuinely trying to give taxpayers their money.
When you log in to My Account, along the right-hand side, there is a tile called Uncashed Cheques. It allows you to view uncashed cheques that are at least 6 months old. These cheques could include old tax refunds, but amounts like GST/HST credits or Universal Child Care Benefits are common.
I have grown accustomed to checking it when I log in for clients and have found dozens of cheques going back several years—cheques that CRA is more than willing to reissue. You must sign a simple, one-page declaration with a witness and resubmit it to the CRA to receive a replacement cheque.
Down the left-hand side of the Navigation menu, you will see Accounts and Payments. Assuming you are up to date, you should see an income tax balance of $0.00, but it is not uncommon to see Available Payments as a credit that you can apply against tax owing or issued as a refund.
These payments can come from a number of things, including a misapplied payment or an unissued refund.
If you often owe tax and you remit instalments, you can also confirm your quarterly tax instalments requested and paid.
Deadlines, tax tips and more
If you click on Tax Returns from the home page or the left-hand side of the Navigation menu, you can see information about past tax filings. Scroll down and you will notice a section called Carryover Amounts.
Click on View Carryover Amounts to find information about capital gains and losses, tuition and education amounts, Canada Training Credit, and other deductions and credits. Especially if you do your own tax return, there may be amounts here that could lead to potential tax refunds.
Also located in the Navigation menu is your profile. You can click on it to see information about your tax profile, and it is prudent to make sure all the data is current.
Here you can add or edit your direct deposit information, and confirm or edit your authorized representatives (usually your accountant or past accountants), notification preferences, and security settings.
The security settings allow you to manage your CRA user ID, password, multi-factor authentication settings, and personal identification number. Two-factor authentication helps keep your social insurance number and tax data safe.
If you receive your CRA correspondence electronically, you will have to log in to get your CRA mail. Even if you have not, you can check out Mail under the Correspondence section in the Navigation menu on the left-hand side.
People sometimes miss CRA mail, and it can be important. Your Canada Carbon Rebate notice or your Statement of Account showing a zero balance may not require any action, but CRA often asks for information to support a claim on your tax return, or there might be useful information on a Notice of Assessment for your next tax filing.
The CRA has plenty of tax tidbits in their online portal. As part of their shift to less paper mail and more electronic correspondence, it is important to get used to using CRA My Account. If you are lucky, you might dig up a useful carryover amount that can save you tax, or a cheque you missed cashing in the past.
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