The Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) has a surprisingly robust online portal for managing your personal tax matters - it is more than 'just mail'.
As the CRA puts it: "My Account is a secure portal that lets you view your personal income tax and benefit information and manage your tax affairs online." But what "tax affairs"? Why would you want to "view your personal income tax and benefit information"?
Why
A great deal of information is available, as well as a large number of services. You can apply for benefits, get your detailed tax information, copies of your tax slips, change your personal contact information, set up direct deposit, and see if you have any uncashed cheques. Here's a full list.
(Did I mention uncashed cheques?)
How
This is trickier. The full registration process is here. You start it online, entering your basic information (SIN, DOB, postal code). You need to have filed your taxes recently, as they will ask you for specific information from the current and/or previous tax years. You can use copies of your return you received from your tax preparer or the Notices of Assessment (NOA) you should have received in the mail. Contact your tax preparer for the NOA copies if you don't have them - often they will have representative access to your CRA account.
One thing to note is that once you've started the registration process, they will send you a letter (snail mail!) with an access code to complete the process.
We can help! If you need your tax information right away or if you need copies of your NOAs, we can get those for you. Talk to us today.