Ottawa moving ahead on automatic tax filing. Here’s what to know
Global News
The federal government says it plans to move ahead with measures to make it easier for Canadian taxpayers to file their annual returns, building on efforts already underway.
The federal government is moving forward with plans to make automatic tax filing more widely available to Canadians, including those who are “middle class.”
In the fall economic statement released on Monday, Ottawa announced several measures to make it easier for Canadian taxpayers to file their annual returns, building on efforts that are already underway.
“It is time for Canada to accelerate modernization of how Canadians file their taxes and make needlessly complicated and costly tax filing services a thing of the past,” the fall fiscal document states.
“Many countries have already pursued full-scale automatic tax filing and the federal government is launching the second phase of its work to move Canada towards broad-based automatic tax filing.”
Among the measures announced is legislation to allow the Canada Revenue Agency to automatically file a tax return on behalf of some lower-income Canadians, starting as early as the 2025 tax year.
As part of a national pilot program, first proposed in the 2023 federal budget, more than two million eligible Canadians had been invited by July to file their 2023 tax returns by phone, online or by mail using the agency’s SimpleFile services.
The pilot was launched to help low-income Canadians who have never filed a tax return or who have a gap in their filing history.
The federal government is now looking into expanding automatic tax filing to “middle class Canadians with simple tax situations.”
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