Online Tax Filing and Services for Businesses

To both help business owners and streamline the tax filing process, the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) offers a bevy of online services. As a business owner, it’s important to know what’s available, and what you can accomplish online.

The CRA has three different types of online accounts: My Account, My Business Account, and Represent a Client.

If you are a self-employed individual or a sole proprietor running a business without a business number, you can use My Account. This online portal, designed for individual taxpayers, allows you to track your benefit and credit payments, set up direct deposit, and much more.

My Business Account is reserved for businesses with business numbers. If you collect GST/HST, pay payroll taxes, or file corporate income taxes, you need to apply for a business number, and should use My Business Account for your online needs.

Finally, if a representative deals with the CRA on behalf of your business, he must use the Represent a Client service.

Using the relevant online account, you can track and view much of your business information online. In particular, you can view messages from the CRA, check on your account balances, and look at the status of your return. You may also view a list of the people authorized to access your account.

If you want to add a new representative, transfer credits, set up direct deposit, or perform a number of other actions, you may do so online. Additionally, you can respond online to notices for more information or other requests received from the CRA.

If you simply want to crunch a few numbers or make a few estimates, the CRA has a number of online calculators to help you. It has calculators for payroll deductions, corporate instalment, and GST/HST instalments.

These calculators are not tied to your My Business Account profile or other online accounts. Instead, they exist simply to create estimations for your own records.

You can file almost all of your taxes online. This method is faster and wastes less paper than conventional filing methods, and has the added bonus of providing you with immediate confirmation upon the CRA’s receipt of your information.

You can file corporate or self-employed, or investment taxes online using forms T2 and T1. You can also file your GST/HST returns and your payroll statements online, for which there are several ways to file.

You can file GST/HST returns using online web forms, a process that closely mimics filling out paper forms. If you have software to manage your business accounts, you may submit your files over the Internet using the CRA’s file transfer application. Finally, for end of the year taxes, you may use an authorized tax preparation program such as TurboTax, which files your T1 personal income returns electronically through the CRA’s NETFILE service.

In addition to finding information and filing tax returns online, you can also pay your taxes online. The CRA accepts debit cards, credit cards, pre-authorized debits, and payments from third-party service providers.

Using tax preparation software designed for self-employed taxpayers takes the guesswork out of taxes. With step-by-step instructions and easy-to-follow guides, TurboTax Self-Employed Online is the perfect choice for small business owners.