Increasing the Accuracy of Your Tax Returns Using Your CRA My Account

The Canada Revenue Agency’s My Account online tool has a lot of information about your tax files. Knowing where to look can help you file more accurately and ensures that you receive all of the benefits and credits you are entitled to. Keeping your information up to date is also important if you want to file electronically.

Registered retirement savings plans are widely used by Canadians as tax and retirement planning tools butRRSP contributions are limited to a certain amount every year. Unused contributions can be carried over to future years. However, it can be difficult to track how much your personal maximum contributions are. This can be greatly simplified if you use My Account where you can see your cumulative RRSP ceiling easily by clicking on the RRSP and Savings Plans tab. This way, you can be certain that you are claiming the correct amount.

Closely related to RRSPs are the lifelong learning plan and the home buyers’ plan. These plans allow you to withdraw a tax-free amount from your RRSP, but you must repay that amount over time. The calculation to determine how much you must repay each year can be complex, but the My Account portal has that information already calculated for you, letting you file your taxes accurately.

The law allows for several other credits and deductions to be carried over to previous or future years. It can be very tedious to track these amounts manually. My Account contains a section called Carryover Amounts that shows you a detailed history of each amount in your file, when it was created, how much you used and how much is left. The amounts tracked are:

• Tuition, Education, and Textbook Amounts
• Capital gains and losses
• Lifetime capital gains deduction
• Non-capital losses

When you log in to My Account, you can review these amounts what your available amounts for deduction in the current year are. You will be able to see if there are any credits available that you might have forgotten about and claim them to reduce your current taxes.

The My Account tool also contains all of your personal information, such as your address, your marital status and your phone numbers. It is important to keep these up to date so that the CRA can communicate with you. All of these can be updated instantly online in the Personal Information section of My Account.

If you want to file your tax return electronically using the CRA’s NETFILE system, you need to ensure that the personal information in your file is accurate. NETFILE will not allow you to file your return unless the address on the return matches the address in the CRA’s files. Using My Account, you can make the necessary changes instantly and online.

Register for a CRA My Account.

Learn more about registering for a CRA My Account.