CRA forms, explained

The CRA forms an owner-managed business actually meets, each explained in plain English: what it is for, who files it, when it is due, and what happens if it is filed late or not at all.

Quick answer: Each page below covers one CRA form: what it does, who signs it, when it is due, what has to be attached, and what it costs if it is filed late. Every deadline is taken from a CRA source, which is linked on the page.

Elections

An election changes how a transaction is taxed, and almost all of them are unforgiving about dates. A late, amended or revoked election carries a penalty of the lesser of $8,000 and $100 for each complete month from the election’s original due date to the date the request reaches the CRA in a form it finds satisfactory.

Your CRA notice of assessment line by lineHow to read a CRA notice of assessment, what each line means, what to do when it disagrees with the return you filed, and how long you have to object. Petty cash and reimbursing yourself what the CRA expects to seeHow an incorporated owner reimburses themselves properly, what documentation the CRA expects, and why an unsupported reimbursement is not a deduction. CRA collections what happens nextWhat the CRA can do to collect a debt — liens, garnishment and bank requirements — the order it usually happens in, and how to stop it escalating. T2057 — The Section 85 Rollover ElectionElection on Disposition of Property by a Taxpayer to a Taxable Canadian Corporation T2054 — The Capital Dividend ElectionElection for a Capital Dividend Under Subsection 83(2) T2200 — Declaration of Conditions of EmploymentDeclaration of Conditions of Employment T2125 — Reporting Self-Employed Business IncomeStatement of Business or Professional Activities AUT-01 — AUT-01: Authorizing Your Accountant (and RC59)Authorize a Representative for Offline Access GST20 — Changing Your GST/HST Reporting PeriodElection for GST/HST Reporting Period GST44 — Buying a Business Without Paying GSTGST/HST Election Concerning the Acquisition of a Business T2091(IND) — Designating a Principal ResidenceDesignation of a Property as a Principal Residence T1135 — Foreign Income VerificationForeign Income Verification Statement T5013 — The Partnership Information ReturnStatement of Partnership Income T5018 — Contract Payments in ConstructionStatement of Contract Payments NR4 — Payments to Non-ResidentsStatement of Amounts Paid or Credited to Non-Residents of Canada T5008 — Securities TransactionsStatement of Securities Transactions T4A — Fees for Services and Other IncomeStatement of Pension, Retirement, Annuity, and Other Income T5 — The Investment Income SlipStatement of Investment Income GST34 — The GST/HST ReturnGST/HST Return for Registrants PD7A — Payroll Remittances ExplainedStatement of Account for Current Source Deductions RC4288 — Requesting Taxpayer ReliefRequest for Taxpayer Relief — Cancel or Waive Penalties and Interest Put a single question to a CPAOne specific question, answered by a CPA at no cost

Why the form number matters

Most tax writing is organised around concepts — rollovers, capital dividends, worker classification. That is not how the form reaches you. It arrives as a number on a page, usually attached to a deadline, and often from somebody who assumes you already know what it is.

The factors the CRA weighs when deciding whether a worker is an employee or an independent contractor: control over the work, ownership of tools, chance of profit, risk of loss, and integration into the business. — No single factor decides it. The CRA weighs all of them together.

These pages are organised the other way round: by the number in your hand.

What being late actually costs

Most of the forms on this page are elections, and an election is not a return. A return filed late attracts a penalty calculated on tax owing. An election filed late is a different problem: in several cases it is simply not available after the deadline, and where it is available it comes with a penalty of its own and the CRA’s discretion attached.

That distinction is the practical reason these deserve their own pages. A late T2 is expensive. A missed section 85 election can mean a transfer that was meant to be tax-deferred is taxed in full, on a gain the owner never saw in cash. The paperwork is trivial; the consequence of forgetting it is not.

Working out which one applies to you

If a transaction is already planned, the form follows from the transaction — moving assets into a corporation points at T2057, selling a business as assets points at GST44, paying out the non-taxable half of a capital gain points at T2054. If instead a letter or an accountant has named a number at you, the pages here start with what the form does and who signs it, which is usually the fastest way to work out whether it is yours to deal with at all.

Where a form is not listed, that is deliberate rather than an omission. This set covers the ones an owner-managed corporation actually meets. Forms that belong to large-corporation reporting, or to specialised sectors, are not here.

Common questions about CRA forms

How do I know which CRA form I need?+

If a transaction is already planned, the form follows from it — assets moving into a corporation point at T2057, a business sold as assets points at GST44. If a number has been quoted at you instead, each page here opens with what that form does and who signs it. Ask about your case →

What happens if I file an election late?+

It depends on the election. Some are simply unavailable after the deadline. Others can be filed late within a set window on payment of a penalty, at the CRA’s discretion. That is the main way an election differs from a return, where lateness is priced rather than fatal. Ask about your case →

Do I file these with my T2?+

Not usually, and assuming so is a common way elections go late. Several attach to whichever party has the earliest filing deadline, some are filed on their own, and one — T2200 — is never filed at all, only kept. Ask about your case →

Why is this list short?+

It covers the forms an owner-managed corporation actually meets. Forms belonging to large-corporation reporting or to specialised sectors are deliberately left out rather than listed thinly. Ask about your case →

How to read a CRA form number

The prefix tells you which system the form belongs to, which is usually enough to work out who files it and when.

Prefix	What it belongs to
T1	The personal return and its schedules
T2	The corporate return, and most corporate elections
T3	Trust returns and trust reporting
T4 / T5	Information slips — what was paid to someone, reported to both them and the CRA
GST / RC	GST/HST forms, and general business account administration
AUT	Authorisation — who may deal with the CRA on your behalf

A four-digit number after a T2 prefix is very often an election rather than a return, and elections behave differently from everything else on this list.

Why elections are the ones that hurt

A return that is filed late is late, and the penalty is calculated on the tax owing. An election is not like that. An election changes how a transaction is taxed, and it only does so if it is filed on time and in the prescribed form. Miss it and the transaction is taxed as though you never intended anything, a rollover becomes a sale at fair market value, a capital dividend becomes an ordinary taxable one.

That is why the deadlines on these pages are stated so precisely. Several of them are not filing-season dates at all. The capital dividend election is due by the day the dividend becomes payable, which is whatever the directors’ resolution says. The section 85 election is due with the earliest return of anyone party to the transfer, which is frequently an individual rather than the corporation.

Almost every form here is filed as part of a larger engagement rather than on its own; the year-round accounting these forms belong to is what that looks like.

Where the CRA will accept a late election, it charges the lesser of $8,000 and $100 for each complete month from the election’s original due date to the date the request reaches the CRA in a form it finds satisfactory. It generally will not process the election until that is paid.

What we actually do with these

Most of the forms here are not things a business files casually. They accompany a decision — incorporating an existing business, paying out a capital dividend, selling a company, taking on a first employee, and the form is the last step of work that started somewhere else.

So the useful question is rarely “how do I complete this box”. It is whether the election is the right one, whether the conditions are met, and whether the date has already passed. Those are the three things worth checking before anything is filed.

Holding a form and a deadline?

Elections are date-driven, and the penalty runs by the month. Email us before the date rather than after — we quote the work in writing first.

Email us about a CRA form

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