Tax personality quiz – Deadline Dancer

It's 9 p.m. on the last day to file your taxes. You're hunched over your laptop, squinting at the figures on your tax slips and punching them in one by one. Once again, you've waited until the last minute. “No problem,” you tell yourself. “I work best under pressure!” Just minutes before midnight, you submit your return online. You didn't have time to double-check your work, but that's OK—you included all the necessary tax slips and claimed all the right tax credits and deductions. Probably. Maybe.

If this scenario sounds familiar, you're a “Deadline Dancer,” one of the many Canadians who file their tax returns just in the nick of time. Maybe you like the rush of cutting it close. Or maybe you planned to file earlier but procrastinated for weeks. Kudos to you for pulling it off—but there are drawbacks to starting your return just days or hours before the income tax filing deadline.

Risks of filing taxes close to the deadline

• Rushing through the process. Working under a tight deadline is stressful and exhausting, and it raises the risk of making mistakes.
• No time to double-check. Errors might slip through, and you might overlook tax credits and deductions that could put hundreds or thousands of dollars back in your pocket.
• No time to get missing documents. You might discover that you're missing a tax slip or expense receipt. This could prevent you from filing on time, or it may require submitting a change request after your return has been processed and you receive your Notice of Assessment.
• Problems with online filing: You might encounter technical difficulties, or your return might not be eligible for electronic filing. Allow some extra time to deal with potential tech problems.
• Waiting longer for a tax refund. Plus, processing your tax return could be delayed if you've made a mistake or left out any documents.

Why do you start your taxes last-minute?

It's not you, exactly—it's just the way you're wired. We're all prone to psychological tendencies that can undermine our best intentions and lead us to procrastinate. In the context of tax filing, these might include:

• Task aversiveness: When faced with a task we don't want to do, we may have negative feelings such as anger, boredom, frustration, or resentment. To avoid them, we avoid the task.
• Rationalizing dissonance: When we plan to do something but don't do it, this creates cognitive dissonance, which feels bad. To relieve that tension, we deceive ourselves with thoughts like, “I work better under pressure” or “I thrive under deadlines.”
• Planning fallacy: People may underestimate how long a task takes to finish and/or feel overly optimistic about how quickly they can do it—even if they've done it before.
• Time discounting: People often give more weight to immediate, short-term rewards than to future ones. If a deadline is weeks away, you might choose to spend time with friends instead, for example.

We're not helpless in the face of our human foibles, however. No one makes us drag our heels on tasks we'd rather not do.

In his book Solving the Procrastination Puzzle, Timothy A. Pychyl, a former psychology professor at Carleton University, describes procrastination as the “voluntary and quite deliberate turning away from an intended action even when we know we could act on our intention right now.” This reluctance may be hard to overcome, even when we know putting something off goes against our best interests.

How to prepare your taxes earlier

It's time to do your future self a favour and push back against procrastination. Try these strategies to get ready for tax season:

• Do a reality check: To avoid falling prey to planning fallacy, think back to your previous tax returns and add up the time for each step: finding out what's changed from last year, gathering tax slips, itemizing expenses, filling out your T1 form, co-ordinating with your spouse/common-law partner, etc. Then add a bit of wiggle room to deal with unexpected problems or consult a tax professional.
• Use your calendar to stay on track: Put the tax-filing deadline in your calendar. (It's typically April 30 for most Canadians and June 15 for those who are self-employed or whose spouse/common-law partner is self-employed. If these dates fall on a weekend, the deadline is the next business day.) Block off dedicated time in your schedule to prepare your return, and set reminders.
• Simplify the process: You might feel less averse to tackling your taxes if the process could be smoother and simpler. TurboTax makes tax prep easier with features like Auto-fill My Return, which imports your tax info straight from your CRA My Account, and expert help on demand.
• Double-check your work: Before submitting your return to NETFILE, check the numbers (both the ones you entered and those that were auto-filled). Then check for any tax savings you may have overlooked. The CRA has a list of tax deductions and credits you can read through, or TurboTax can search all 400-plus of them for you.
• Work with an expert: If you'd rather have more support, book an appointment with a TurboTax Expert early in the tax season. TurboTax also offers extended hours and refiling support, if you need them.

File earlier and breathe easier

As a Deadline Dancer, you're already filing on time. By adding a few procrastination-busting strategies, you can give yourself the gift of time to get it right, claim every dollar you deserve, and avoid tax headaches later. The experts at TurboTax are always here to help.

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