CRA My Account

You know you waaaant it!

It’s a good bet at this time of year that you have income taxes on your mind. Maybe you have yet to file your return and you’re stressing about that, or maybe you have already filed and are anxious for your refund. Either way, this a great time to set up your Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) My Account, if you haven’t already.

There are many reasons to make sure that you are set up. Have you ever needed to know your RRSP or TFSA limit? Have you needed a copy of your Notice of Assessment (NOA) for your bank or financial advisor? Have you ever wondered if you actually cashed in that last CRA cheque? These are all things that you can find on your CRA My Account.  

When someone meets a potential new advisor there is usually quite a bit of data gathering that goes on. The advisor wants to know how much RRSP and TFSA room there is, details about past income, charitable donations, and a whole lot more. This can be another great use of the CRA My Account. By authorizing your advisor as a representative, you give them the ability to look up many of these items, and it can save you a great deal of time having to dig through paperwork. By authorizing us as a representative, we’ve saved our clients the bother of sending us a copy of their NOA or looking up the information we need from their own documents. Now we can simply look up a TFSA or RRSP limit directly, saving the client time and removing one point of potential error. If your current advisor isn’t doing this for you already, I would encourage you to ask them to start.

The CRA My Account isn’t a new thing. For some time now, the CRA has given individuals the ability to sign in and see the status of their returns, gather past tax information, current RRSP and TFSA limits, and many other useful things. In the past few years the CRA has relied on web services more and more and, as a result, they have made it a much more useful tool for taxpayers and their advisors.

But it’s not just beneficial for financial advisors. If you have a low income, you can see the schedule of your GST/HST credits. Parents can look up their Canada Child Benefit details. People with disabilities can find out what’s happening with their disability tax credit. If the CRA has asked for additional documentation, they have a portal where you can quickly and easily submit those documents.

In my opinion, pretty much everyone should set themselves up. If you don’t already have an account, here is what you need to do:

1. Gather up your last year’s tax return. If that one’s super recent, maybe grab the one from the year before, too – just in case you need it. You will need information from one of these on your first visit only for verification purposes.

2. With the above at hand, go to www.canada.ca/myaccount, and click on “CRA My Account”. 

3. Now you have a choice: use a bank sign in, set up a CRA user ID, or use your provincial ID to sign up. Pick whichever one is easiest for you and the one that you will remember for next time.

4. After making your choice, you will be walked through the setup process, asked a series of verification questions, and asked to set up two-factor authentication. Now you’re set.

Once you have access, you’ll be able to see your tax returns, NOAs and any reassessments, benefits, and tax refunds. You will be able to see your RRSP and TFSA limits and your required repayments for the first-time home buyer program. You’ll be able to see your correspondence with the CRA, and you can even request adjustments to your past returns. In short, almost everything that would have meant a call to the CRA in the past is accessible on this site.

In my opinion, one of the nicest features is the ability to give your accountant or financial advisor access to your information easily. You get to decide if you want to give them level 1 access (permission to view only) or level 2 access (permission to act on your behalf). 

However, I do have one caveat about the information on this site: I’ve said this in past articles, don’t trust the reported TFSA limit until March or even April. The CRA should have a much bigger disclaimer on the page explaining that they don’t even update the TFSA contribution details for the past year until the end of February.

Other than this flaw (which I consider to be a significant one) with the TFSA numbers, your CRA My Account is a useful site for obtaining information of all sorts from the CRA. Being able to sign in may also enable you to auto download information into your tax return program every year, saving you the time it takes to input all the T-slips.

I know it can feel a bit daunting to set up, but it’s really not that difficult if you gather your tax returns first. And once it’s set up, it makes so many things much easier. I strongly encourage you to just push through the initial few hoops (they really aren’t that hard) and get yourself set up. It’s the wave of the future and you’ll be glad you did.  

“Walk with the wise and become wise, for a companion of fools suffers harm.”  – Proverbs 13:20 (NIV)

Arnold Machel lives, works, and worships in the White Rock/South Surrey area. He holds the Certified Financial Planner® designation, is the Founder of Visionvest Financial Planning & Services, and sits on the board of Abundance Canada. Visionvest (his firm) has been voted Best Investment/Financial Advisor by Peace Arch News readers for the past three years in a row.

Questions and comments can be directed to him at dr.rrsp@visionvest.ca. Please note that all comments are of a general nature and should not be relied upon as individual advice. While every attempt is made to ensure accuracy, facts and figures are not guaranteed.