Filing Your Return -> Prepare Ahead
Prepare Ahead for Your Tax Return
- Make Sure You Have all Your Receipts and Information Slips Before Filing Your Return.
Make sure you have the prior year tax return and notice of assessment.
Most tax information slips are mailed by the end of February. However, T3 slips, which are issued for income from Canadian mutual funds, exchange traded funds and other trusts, do not have to be mailed until the end of March. Thus, if you have mutual funds outside of an RRSP, it is advisable to wait until at least a week into April to file your return. The tax information slips and receipts you should gather include:
- T4 for employment income
- T4A for pension and other income
- T4(OAS) for Old Age Security income
- T4(CPP) for Canada Pension Plan income
- T4E for Employment Insurance and other benefits
- T4PS for Employee profit sharing income
- T4RIF for RIF withdrawals
- T4RSP for RRSP withdrawals
- T5 for investment income, some of which may be in US$
- T5013 Statement of partnership income
- T101 Statement of resource expenses
- T3 for trust income
- T5007 for Workers compensation benefits
- T10 for Pension Adjustment Reversal (PAR)
- medical expenses, including private health plan premiums
- moving expenses, including student moving expenses
- pooled registered pension plan (PRPP) contributions
- union dues and other employment expenses
- transit pass (Ontario age 66+ only)
If you have investments outside of RRSPs (i.e., in non-registered accounts), have all your brokerage statements organized to provide the required information. You should also receive a "trading summary" from your brokerage, listing all the trades made during the year. You can use trading summaries from prior years to confirm the cost basis of any investments you have sold in the current tax year. However, for foreign investments held in a US$ brokerage account, your trading summaries and brokerage statements will only have your cost basis and sales proceeds in US$ - it's your responsibility to determine and track the Canadian $ cost basis and sales proceeds. This is needed to report foreign income and capital gains, as well as for foreign asset reporting.
Revised: May 21, 2020