There are more and more people experiencing problems of unfiled tax returns. It is understandable that there are many priorities in people’s lives and thus sometimes it is becoming increasingly difficult for taxpayers to catch up with their tax filing obligations.
The CRA, however, views your situation differently, not in sympathy perspective as CRA is, by its nature, a tax revenue agency and thus CRA views your Unfiled Tax Returns to CRA to be not in compliance with income tax act and thus this behavior merits some financial or legal punishment.
To be in compliance, you must have all your Unfiled Tax Returns filed. This means you won’t get any relief from CRA collection actions such as income garnishment or bank levy, until you complete and file all tax returns. So the sooner you file all your back taxes, the sooner the CRA will be willing to negotiate with you.
File Your Past Tax Returns
It is very important to understand that filing your tax return each year will save you out of CRA trouble. If you have unfiled tax returns for few years, it is to your best interests to file them as soon as possible.
Knowingly not filing your tax return is illegal. However, CRA understands that people make mistakes and thus they give you a limited time window to file over due tax returns to correct the wrong.
CRA Notifies Your Unfiled Tax Returns
The CRA may send you a demand to file for the current year tax unfiled; CRA may also wait for few years and then send you the demand to file letter. You need to keep in mind that CRA will eventually find you and if they do, you will have to face the late filing tax penalties and accumulated interests starting from the date when the tax is due.
Consequences of Not Filing Past-Due Returns
If you do not cooperate with CRA and ignore the demand to file notice, CRA may just take some harsh legal action against you, such as lock up your bank, garnish your income, bank levy, etc.
When a Mistake Becomes a Crime
With the advance of the technology, CRA has enhanced its database to identify people who have unfiled tax return problems for years. If you have unfiled returns, you are automatically on the list of most wanted people for tax collection. If you can act before CRA gets to you, you have a better chance of resolving your tax problems without going thorough the pain of legal action and embarrassment.
The CRA has a wide range of punishment available that they can impose on persons who don’t file returns. Intentionally not filing, or filing a false return, is a crime. It is critical to take action to resolve your unfiled return problems before a simple mistake becomes a crime.
Most Common Excuse for Unfiled Tax Returns – I Can’t Afford to Pay the Tax Owing
Many people do not file the tax for their personal reasons, such as divorce, sickness, etc. Unfortunately, affordability is not a sound one. The reason is simple. The longer you wait to file, the more you will end up paying. It is like spinning in a vicious cycle.
Dealing with over due tax returns immediately is important if not critical. Wait for too long, then it becomes a much serious matter that cause legal actions. If you file tax and can not afford to pay, there are many options available to you such as negotiate a payment plan or tax relief. So stop making excuses, take action to clear up your back taxes.
It is important that you try to promptly deal with filing past-due tax returns. The stress you have can be removed if you just get professional help. We specialize in such tax problem solutions. We are here to help you when you need the most.
CRA’s Hefty Late Filing Penalties
First time late filing penalty: if you owe tax and do not file your return on time, CRA will charge you a late-filing penalty. The penalty is 5% of your tax balance owing, plus 1% of your balance owing for each full month that your return is late, to a maximum of 12 months. In another word, if you have late tax unfiled, for the very first year, you will have 17% of tax owing for the penalties alone.
Repeating late filing penalty: if the late filing is a re-occurring event within three years, then the penalties become nearly tripled. The late-filing penalty becomes 10% of your tax balance owing, plus 2% of your tax balance owing for each full month that your return is late, to a maximum of 20 months. That is a late filing penalty of 50% of your tax owing.
The Compounded Daily Interests
In addition to the late filing penalties, CRA charges much higher interest than banks on your tax balance and penalties. The interest is compounded DAILY. Use rule of thumb, if assumed interest is 7%, which is not abnormal for CRA for many years, then tax owing doubles in about ten years. When the interest is compounded daily, the interest keeps running when you sleep.
What You Need to Do Now is to stop procrasnating, start taking actions. You can not afford to wait any longer!
What We Can Do to Help You
To control your damage right away, we will do a quick, sometimes, on the spot assessment, if you have unfiled tax returns for years and you do not owe taxes. Then we will quickly help you to reconstruct all the financial information and locate all your missing pieces of tax information to report your tax returns properly.
If we determine that you have unfiled tax returns and large tax debts owing for many years and thus the interests and late filing penalties are alarmingly high. Then we may need to help you to file under the Voluntary Disclosure Program or Tax Amnesty immediately to avoid the risk of being caught by CRA and thus lose the opportunity to file under the protective Voluntary Disclosure Program to reduce the severe damage. The penalties alone may force you into bankruptcy.
Why You Should Work with Tax 911 Now
Unlike these accountants or the tax filers with seasonal appearance in the malls, we can not only fix your unfiled tax return problem, we can also help you to negotiate with CRA for the matters before and after the filing.
Before the filing, we can help you to file Tax Amnesty program to completely remove your penalties and/or some of the interests.
After the tax filing, if CRA challenge you or audit you, we have the expertise to represent you and fight for you on the returns;
If the tax bill is too high, then we can negotiate a tax relief for you to reduce the tax penalties and interest, or we can help you to negotiate an affordable payment plan so no legal collection actions will be taken against you by CRA.
We are different because we can provide much more comprehensive services to protect you in many aspects and all stages of your tax dealing with CRA.
Our Unlimited Free Consultation & Service Guarantee
To begin with, we offer RISK FREE no obligation initial consultation just to help you to understand the depth and complexity of your tax problems. We will also provide you the recommended steps to take to fix your tax problems. Then it is completely up to you to decide what to do from there.
If you do decide to engage us to fix your tax problems, we will provide price match guarantee within the entire tax negotiation industry.