Mentally ill still serving member , haven't done my taxes in about 6 years and in need of assistance.

when you finished your taxes ill put a link here for the tax relief form just in case you may need it and so you can find it easy its pdf so you can print it .

http://www.cra-arc.gc.ca/E/pbg/tf/rc4288/rc4288-14e.pdf

good luck buds

propat

Debunking tax myths

There are groups and individuals in Canada who claim that people can lawfully refuse to pay taxes or file a tax return. Others try to cash in on misunderstandings about tax laws.

In an open and free democracy like Canada, citizens have every right to freely express their opinions on the constitution, taxes, or any other issue. The Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) is concerned, however, that individuals who mistakenly confuse opinions with facts may expose themselves to serious financial and legal problems if this results in their failure to comply with the Income Tax Act and other tax laws.

Remember also that many groups and individuals stand to profit considerably from the perpetuation of certain tax myths. Don't let them profit at your expense!

To help you understand the truth about taxes, the CRA wishes to address some misleading statements and myths about Canada's tax laws and the way they are administered. The CRA also strongly encourages you to always consult with a knowledgeable and trusted advisor before making any significant tax decision.

Myth # 2
The income tax system is based on voluntary compliance because the government knows tax laws are unconstitutional and cannot be enforced.

The Facts
There is no question that voluntary compliance is the cornerstone of Canada's self-assessment taxation system. This simply means that the government expects you to respect the law and comply fully with your tax obligations.

This approach does not imply that the law cannot be enforced if necessary. The Income Tax Act and other laws provide a range of penalties for offences such as tax evasion, failure to pay taxes, failure to disclose income, or refusing to file a tax return. These penalties can include fines, third-party claims, seizures, and criminal prosecution.

On the other hand the Voluntary Disclosures Program (VDP) provides taxpayers with the opportunity to come forward and make a voluntary disclosure before they become aware of any compliance action being initiated against them. Taxpayers availing themselves of the VDP will have to pay the taxes owing, plus interest, but may avoid penalties or prosecution.

http://www.cra-arc.gc.ca/nwsrm/myths/menu-eng.html

yaaa jayse don't know whats going on there but relax and take your time.

don't worry about tax relief just yet.

you have no idea if you even owe the CRA any money let alone penalties and interest . tax relief is for lowering or eliminating any penalties or interest and you would need to know if your applying for penalties ore interest and the amount you were charged for each year in order to apply . sooo you are probably going to need to file your taxes first then when you get your summery back go from there . you may get a refund check or owe no tax at all .

if you owe some tax and they charge you penalties' or interest your summery will show you what they charged you and for what year THEN you carry on with the tax relief .

soooo don't worry about something you may not even need until you get your taxes done.

do your tax first IF you need to apply for relief you WILL be able to do that latter .

good luck buds

propat

Trooper, I am amazed that you have taken the time to look into this for me. I am wondering what the time crunch might be for me to get this done, it is making me ill to think about. I know I have to make a decision but sometimes the depression just turns me back to "not give a xxxx mode. I couldn't bring myself to call today, but I will try tomorrow to get a second opinion.

Again, I am very moved that you would take your personal time to assist me with this. I'm trying to be strong. I will update within the next couple of days.

Thanks Trooper.

-J

The only thing I'm worried about in sending in your 2015 an doing them one at a time may put you in a position of losing your rights to tax relief in the form of interest or penalties.

It is an option to consider , but I have just spoken with a CRA disclosure specialist an they strongly advise taken the voluntary disclosure route.

The reason you cannot access my account is because you need to have filed your tax returns for the two previous years in order to be able to open your account.

The CRA said that the disclosure an the relief application would all be sent in with all returns , all at the same time , an they would send you all T4's you need for past years if you contact them an ask for it.
They also said that if you just file your 2015 taxes , the CRA will pick up any past T4's that were not filed , then they will contact you an take action to ensure you file all your past returns , which in this case would leave you without the option of applying for any type of relief.
I'm only going by what I was told , we all know even the CRA specialist are not all on the same page , it makes sense to me , but like I said , the CRA doesn't always give the correct info.

So I guess in the end the choice is up to you Jayse , either way , it's not as complicated as one may think , your mother in law or friends or even H&R BLOCK could help you with this , it's just a matter of getting all your T4's doing or filing each year an filling out the voluntary disclosure form an your good to go.
One final point , your not guaranteed to get approved for the relief.

Studio Tax is a free software that I use.

What a great blog and great read guys!
This is the help and team work I am used to from CF comrades, BZ ! ! !
Jayse29 all the best with your taxes.  
And also keep in mind that if you qualify for the DTC (Disability Tax Credit), CRA will go back to when the doctor diagnosed you with your condition (Doctor's portion of the DTC application) and the CRA will adjust your t4's to include the DTC deductions.
Maybe they owe you money?

Jayse, I read the summary page about voluntary disclosures and here's a cut'n'paste from the questions:

"What are the conditions for a valid disclosure?

A valid disclosure must meet all of the following four conditions:
  - your disclosure is voluntary (made before you become aware of any compliance action taken by the CRA against you);
 -  a penalty applies to it;
 -  the information is at least one year overdue; and
 -  the information is complete.

Disclosures relating to any of the following are not accepted under the VDP:
- income tax returns with no taxes owing or with refunds expected;"

So before you can submit for a voluntary disclosure, you have to complete the tax returns and find out if you owe or are getting a refund. If you are getting refunds, then no worries. It looks like a good thing for the years you may owe on but you have to find out if you owe first.

And another thing I thought of, for your missing military T4s, just go the the pay office and request a T4 be issued for those years. They will be sent to the address you provide (has to match HRMS, where your MPRR is printed from) and should be received in about 2-3 weeks after you request them. This will save you contacting CRA at this time. And don't forget to have the EI T slip for your parental leave.

You can do this, Jayse. Happy thoughts sent your way.

Sabrelove

Why bother with the disclosure program? From what I've read you may actually get a refund back from those years and I doubt the government would even bother to do anything. Since you have not heard anything from CRA and if you owed CRA would have contacted you by now! Since the source of your income is from the military , DND submits your t4 electronically to CRA. The CRA already knows what you've made. IMO just file your taxes for each year your behind and see what happens? Set up direct deposit and request a MY Account access code from CRA using the 1800 number. I know of a guy who retired in Cuba and never filed his taxes for over 10 years. When he needed a medical procedure he had to fly back to Ontario and stay here for 3 months to get his OhIP back. While here he paper filed his returns for the time he missed and about 6 months later received a refund of 600 dollars. Nothing happened and he returned to Cuba once he had his bypass!

Jayse, I used to work in the Base OR and on MATA/PATA files.  T4s are not issued based on whether you did your taxes or not, they are issued based on when income is received.  You said that you were on Parental leave in 2014 and based on what you wrote "quoted below", it finished in 2015.

Sabrelove,

Thank you for possibly the most insightful post yet! Now the 80g's makes sense.

I am typing this to let you know that this is my best educated guess without access to your file and what happened to me when I had my baby. After my maternity leave, I got posted to the BOR, was made the MATA/PATA Clerk and while learning the process, I reviewed my file and discovered I had been underpaid due to this same scenario. You can/should also go to see the MATA/PATA clerk to review your file and ensure that the full allowance was paid to you because normally the 2014 portion of the allowance is paid in 2014, not paid in the next year. You want to be sure you got all your money!

Due to neglect on my part, I did not receive my allowance ($3000 i believe) until later on in the year, but I'm pretty sure it was still 2014. I will go through old bank statements to look into this.

On another note, if you have just a T4 (no investments, child support, capitol losses...) the military is pretty good about deducting enough taxes so that you are within $2 of a zero balance tax return. It is possible that you will have CRA owing money to you, especially now that you have a child and can claim said baby on the tax return. You also need to do tax returns to get the Child Tax Benefit (CTB). You don't say on whether your spouse has income or is in a similar situation with regards to her taxes, but you do need to get them done to get the CTB. Yes, you would be entitled to something even with income reported as 80k!

Just a t4 here. We received the ctb which was ceased around July of last year as a result of me not doing my taxes. She works part time, so we should get a nice lump sum from this when our taxes are completed. (She only has 2 years of taxes to do.)


Jayse, just take it one tax return at a time. Do 2015. You have the slips for that. Make sure your spouse has hers done. Get it in so that 2015 is not late (or too late since today's the deadline). If you owe, this stops the penalty for 2015. If they owe you, you're off to a good start and may help help get you going on the previous returns. PM me if you want.

Definetly some solid advice that has given me a lot of hope. I would have never thought to start with 2015, then go down the line. It would make things much easier.

Again Sabrelove, thank you for this, now it's time for me to get my ass in gear.

I still think I am going to go ahead with the voluntary disclosure program, unless somone would advise against this for any reason.

All the best!

yup great piece of advice saber never thought of that one return at a time . definitely the easiest way to go without confusing the frack out of yourself . doing 2015 first gets you back on the board and ya get to see where you stand .

makes a lot of sense .

propat

Jayse, I used to work in the Base OR and on MATA/PATA files.  T4s are not issued based on whether you did your taxes or not, they are issued based on when income is received.  You said that you were on Parental leave in 2014 and based on what you wrote "quoted below", it finished in 2015.

"2015 - income 80,607 (I'm a non spec pay Cpl) and deduction of 9925
2014 - income 18,120 (I was on pat leave and assume they bumped this one to 2015 since i didnt do my taxes)
2013 - income 70317 (took the payment in lieu) deducted 13629
2012 - income 59187 (my normal pay) 10430 deducted."

The income you got in 2014 would be from your regular pay and nothing from when you were on parental leave. While you may have gotten payments while on parental leave, this was considered an advance on your allowance, not payments. The payment happened in 2015 when your file was finalized and the total was posted to your pay. Only once it is posted, it is considered received for the purposes of a T4. That would be why your 2015 T4 is 20k more than your normal pay.

I am typing this to let you know that this is my best educated guess without access to your file and what happened to me when I had my baby. After my maternity leave, I got posted to the BOR, was made the MATA/PATA Clerk and while learning the process, I reviewed my file and discovered I had been underpaid due to this same scenario. You can/should also go to see the MATA/PATA clerk to review your file and ensure that the full allowance was paid to you because normally the 2014 portion of the allowance is paid in 2014, not paid in the next year. You want to be sure you got all your money!

On another note, if you have just a T4 (no investments, child support, capitol losses...) the military is pretty good about deducting enough taxes so that you are within $2 of a zero balance tax return. It is possible that you will have CRA owing money to you, especially now that you have a child and can claim said baby on the tax return. You also need to do tax returns to get the Child Tax Benefit (CTB). You don't say on whether your spouse has income or is in a similar situation with regards to her taxes, but you do need to get them done to get the CTB. Yes, you would be entitled to something even with income reported as 80k!

Jayse, just take it one tax return at a time. Do 2015. You have the slips for that. Make sure your spouse has hers done. Get it in so that 2015 is not late (or too late since today's the deadline). If you owe, this stops the penalty for 2015. If they owe you, you're off to a good start and may help help get you going on the previous returns. PM me if you want.

Sabrelove


O

Notice to the reader

In light of the Federal Court of Appeal's decision in the matter of Bozzer v. Canada (2011 FCA 186), the CRA will apply the Court’s interpretation of the 10-year limitation period described in subsection 220(3.1) of the Income Tax Act (ITA). The ITA provides the Minister with the discretion to waive or cancel interest that accrued within the last ten calendar years, from the year the request for relief was made, regardless of the tax year in which the tax debt arose.
A revised version of the information circular will be available at a later date.

http://www.cra-arc.gc.ca/E/pub/tp/ic00-1r4/README.html

The CRA can get all those past incomes and deductions for you , you will have to declare it sooner or later as with the CRA there's no alternatives.

You can say that your mental state was not normal leaving you unable to address those past taxes , now your getting the help required an your mental state is getting back to normal , you now want to address those past taxes ( willfully ) ask them for assistance in arranging suitable payments to get you back on track with your taxes.

I sent a message to taxsolutionscanada.com explaining my situation. I attempted to create a cra account to take the "voluntary disclosure" route, but when trying to create a cra account, I receive the following error message - Error—ERR.062
We cannot proceed with your request.

"to use this online service, you will need:
an amount you entered on your income tax and benefit return, from one of the previous two tax years;
your social insurance number;
your date of birth; and
your current postal code or ZIP code." - this is after I input my sin number as well.

I would fill out the form and mail it off, but it would likely take a long time to get to its destination in prince edward island.
My last resort is to call the cra number and disclose all of my information and situation which I am terrified to do but it seems to be my only option at this point.

I only have tax receipts for 3 years from emaa and I am unable to get my old tax receipts since I cannot create a CRA account.

Trooper, thanks for the advice. I will contact a CRA specialist who deals with disclosures and will think of some questions to ask in the meantime.


Update - here is what I was able to round up:

The current one is incorrect, as stated earlier:

2015 - income 80,607 (I'm a non spec pay Cpl) and deduction of 9925
2014 - income 18,120 (I was on pat leave and assume they bumped this one to 2015 since i didnt do my taxes)
2013 - income 70317 (took the payment in lieu) deducted 13629
2012 - income 59187 (my normal pay) 10430 deducted.

This is all that I was able to round up, for 2014 I dont have the other slip that would show my pat leave income.
Can anyone recommend a good free program for looking at back taxes? I live in Northern Ontario if that helps.