Quick answer: A registration compliance letter means CRA data, usually your own income tax filings, suggests your taxable revenues crossed the registration threshold; it asks you to register or explain. The real issue is the start date, since the obligation began when the threshold was crossed. Respond with the facts, not the CRA’s guess. Our registration guide covers the mechanics.
If you did cross the threshold, registering late is fixable. We register and backfile together, in that order.
Whether you were required to be registered from that date is the question to settle before you reply. Ask before you respond.
On this page
How they knew
Your T1 or T2 reports revenue. The GST system knows whether that revenue has a registration attached. When the first says “business income” and the second says “no registrant”, a letter is generated. This is matching, not surveillance, and it means the response has to reconcile with what you already filed.
Why the start date is the whole game
If the threshold was crossed, you were required to register from that point, and tax was collectible on taxable sales from then, whether or not you charged it. A wrong start date can turn into remitting tax you never collected. So the response is a dated revenue walk-through: when the threshold test was met, month by month, from your own records, not a shrug that accepts whatever period the CRA proposes.
If you genuinely were not required
Not all revenue is taxable revenue, and not all activity is commercial activity. If your revenues are exempt, zero-rated in ways that change the analysis, or below the threshold on the correct test, say so with the numbers. The letter is a question, and “no, and here is why” is an available answer when it is true.
If you should have registered a while ago
This is common and recoverable. Registration can be backdated, returns filed for the periods since, and input tax credits from those periods offset some of the liability. Act before the letter’s deadlines, get the dates right, and send us the letter first.
Most registration letters trace back to a threshold nobody was watching, which is part of getting the registrations right at the start.
Fastest first step: email what you’re facing to info@everstonecpa.com — reply within one business day, and we take it from there by email.
General information, not tax advice. The document in your hand and its own dates govern.
Common questions about GST registration letter
What is the registration threshold?+
Do I owe GST on sales where I never charged it?+
Can I just register today and move on?+
Is this the same as the Voluntary Disclosures Program?+
Other CRA letters, decoded
Not sure which letter you have? Start with the full list and match what yours says.
One letter often follows another. These cover the ones owner-managers see most.
Email the letter before you register anything
The start date decides the cost. Get it read first — reply within one business day.
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