Why you should check your tax return, even if a professional prepared it
Many Canadians will likely agree that our tax system is overly complex, which is why millions hire an accountant or tax professional to prepare their tax returns each year. But, just because you hire a pro to prepare your return, doesn’t mean you’re not fully accountable — and ultimately liable — for the information contained inside it.
Take this recent Tax Court decision, decided in early October, involving a taxpayer who was reassessed by the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) beyond the normal reassessment period for her 2012 and 2013 tax returns. Under the Income Tax Act, the CRA is generally prohibited from reassessing an individual taxpayer more than three years after the original reassessment, unless it can be shown that the taxpayer made “a false statement attributable to misrepresentation arising from carelessness, neglect or wilful default.”
Returns beyond the normal reassessment period are considered to be “statute barred.”
The taxpayer retired after decades working in senior care homes, initially as a healthcare aide, and ultimately as a qualified personal support worker. She grew up in Jamaica and had a Grade 6 level education. She had always hired a professional tax preparer to complete her annual income tax returns as she did “not feel sufficiently knowledgeable of tax matters” to properly prepare her own returns.
Around 2009, some of the taxpayer’s work colleagues recommended she start using a certain tax preparer for her returns, as he had prepared returns for many of them. As a result of their recommendations, the taxpayer engaged this tax preparer’s services for several years, including for both her 2012 and 2013 personal tax returns.
Around 2016, the taxpayer learned that a number of this tax preparer’s
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