CRA, court reject corporation's 'blame the accountant' excuse for late tax filing

financialpost.com:

It’s important to file your tax return on time, whether you’re an individual taxpayer or filing on behalf of your corporation. Failure to file your return on time can lead to late-filing penalties and arrears interest, charged at the prescribed rate for underpaid taxes, which is currently at nine per cent per annum, compounded-daily — and is not tax deductible.

Should you be hit with penalties and interest, you can always ask the Canada Revenue Agency to waive or cancel them under the taxpayer relief provisions. Should the CRA refuse your request for relief, you can have the CRA’s decision reviewed by a Federal Court judge to determine whether it was “reasonable.” That’s ultimately what happened in a recent case that was heard in court last month, involving a late-filed corporate tax return.

The corporate taxpayer was assessed $8,783.14 in penalties and interest due to the late-filing of its 2018 corporate tax return. The corporation was represented in court by its president and owner, who, while not a lawyer, was granted permission by the judge, in her discretion, to represent his corporation at the hearing.

The business owner argued that the late filing of his corporation’s taxes was not the corporation’s fault, but rather the fault of the corporation’s accountant. The owner argued that he had provided the income tax information to the accountant well before the filing deadline, but the accountant had relocated, and failed to file the return on time.

The corporation filed its tax return for the year ending Dec. 31, 2018 over six months late, on Jan. 17, 2020. The normal corporate tax filing deadline for corporations is six months from its year-end, which in this case would have been June 30, 2019.

After getting hit