Canadian Tax Deadlines Tips & Tricks: A Stress-Free Filing Season

For business owners, it’s especially crucial to stay organized and keep track of key dates to avoid costly penalties or fees.

To help make tax season easier, we’ve provided a summary of Canadian tax deadline dates for businesses and tips to help you plan. This guide covers everything you need to know from filing due dates to strategies for maximizing tax savings.

Bookmark this page and keep it handy so you’re well-prepared for each tax season. Better yet, put these dates in your calendar so you’ll never miss them, and schedule automatic tax and installment payments at your bank at the start of the year.

Important Canadian Tax Deadline Dates

Here are some critical dates that Canadian business owners need to keep in mind to avoid any potential penalties or fees:

• February 29, 2024:  
  • T4 Summary and Slips due to the CRA and to your Employees.
  • T5 Summary and Slips are due to your company’s shareholders for any dividends paid. 
  • Federal and provincial tax payment due for investment companies and ‘general rate’ companies (i.e. non-Canadian Controlled Private Corporations “CCPCs” with a December year-end)
  • RRSP contribution deadline
• April 2, 2024:  
  • T3 Trust returns and slips are due to be filed with the CRA and sent to your family trust’s beneficiaries. 
• April 2, 2024 (December year-end) 
  • Corporate Federal and Provincial tax payment due for CCPCs
  • Annual GST filing and payment due
  • Q1 Federal corporate instalment due 
• April 30, 2024 
  • Personal taxes due (all individuals) 
  • Personal tax returns due (w/ no business income)
• June 17, 2024 
  • Personal tax returns due (business income)
• July 02, 2024
  • Corporate Federal and Provincial tax returns due to be filed.
  • Q2 Federal corporate instalment due

Pro Tip: Make sure your books are closed, reviewed, and delivered to your accountant within 30 days of year-end! 

Helpful Tax Tips 

Now that you’re aware of important Canadian tax deadline dates, here are some tips for staying on top of your 2024 (and beyond) taxes: 

Start Early 

Not only does starting your tax preparation early help you avoid any last-minute stress, but it can be hugely beneficial for businesses, providing great advantages throughout the whole year.  

To start, getting organized and collecting records can save you time and make it easier to identify deductions as they come up. Additionally, having your information ready earlier in the year will help you to streamline both compliance requirements and financial filing responsibilities.  

By taking advantage of this proactive approach to preparing taxes, businesses are better equipped to budget for their expenses accordingly and optimize the use of their available funds for future operations. All of this translates into an overall improved financial health that can result in significant savings over time.

All of Achen Henderson’s clients receive a year-end letter indicating the amount of tax they owe for last year, and their installments, if any are required, for the coming year. Use the schedule provided by our team to plan out the coming year’s tax installments. 

Stay Organized

No matter the size of your business, keeping financial insights organized is crucial. Failing to do so can lead to inaccurate financial data, potentially resulting in unpaid taxes and hefty fines. Overdue tax balances will attract 8% interest starting in Q1 of 2024. 

Being organized not only helps ensure that no numbers or deadlines have been missed but also makes future tax preparations much easier. Good record-keeping practices and trustworthy software can help simplify the process and minimize human errors.

Staying organized helps create a systematic approach to tax preparation that saves time, confusion, and money in the long run. 

Pro Tip: Separating personal and business taxes not only keeps you organized, but it makes everything a whole lot easier come tax time!  

Track Quarterly Estimated Tax Payments  

Adding up your company’s quarterly estimated tax payments for the year provides you with a healthy estimate of what you will owe for year-end.   

The 2024 installment tax payment dates for companies with December 31 yearends are: 

• March 15 
• June 17 
• September 16 
• December 16 

Utilize Technology 

Technology has become a must for making staying on top of taxes a breeze.  

Aside from actual filing, the right tools allow business owners to store, track, and prepare financial information without the hassle of paperwork. Companies can now accurately and efficiently prepare for tax season throughout the year by creating way better accounting controls around: 

• Cash Management 
• Invoicing and collections 
• Bill payments 
• Inventory management 
• Payroll 
• Expense tracking 

With access to real-time data, businesses can also easily identify potential deductions that could reduce their overall tax burden or gain insight into where they should direct their investments.  

Technology helps make the entire tax preparation process simpler and more efficient; business owners no longer need to worry about making costly errors or filing late taxes thanks to the added convenience of cloud computing and modern accounting tools. 

Looking for the perfect virtual accounting system? Check out GURU by Achen Henderson! 

Good housekeeping about sales taxes and such

Being on top of your sales tax registration, collection and reporting requirements, should be a top risk management consideration for businesses as well as cash-flow management, particularly in a recessionary environment that Canada finds itself in.

At all times during the year, this should be top of mind, especially when selling in whole in part, online to customers outside your home province and ensuring that your company is properly registered and applying the correct sales taxes to customers across Canada as well as to customers outside Canada. However, it’s a great idea to take stock of these issues at year end as well, including the following good housekeeping pro-tips.

• Has your company gained new customers in other provinces such as British Columbia, Saskatchewan, Manitoba or Quebec? If so, there may be registration, collection and reporting requirements to meet provincial sales taxes, which are separate from the GST/HST system.
• If selling to customers in HST provinces like Ontario and the Maritimes, have you been charging and reporting the correct rate of tax (i.e., GST vs. HST rates) based on the “place of supply” rules?
• Has your company been taking full advantage of available refunds of GST or HST that it has paid during the year on imports, purchases and other operating expenses? If not, these otherwise eligible credits may be lost over time and cannot be claimed typically after four years. We often see situations where clients have not properly recorded these amounts and can result in thousands, if not tens of thousands of dollars of unrealized cash flow benefit, so consider doing a scrub of your GST/HST input tax credits claimed each year.
• Have you set up any new companies in the year and didn’t register them for GST/HST because there weren’t sufficient revenues during the start-up phase? If so, that company could be at risk of failing to charge GST/HST on the small start-up revenues and may also be ineligible to claim any GST/HST refunds if it’s associated with other companies. In other words, the $30K registration doesn’t apply to new associated companies and the first dollar of taxable revenue is subject to GST/HST.
• Have your total revenues subject to GST/HST in the year exceeded the reporting period thresholds to move to more frequent filing periods? All companies that are associated with one another all share the same filing frequency, so if the combined revenues subject to GST/HST exceed $1.5M then all companies must be on the same quarterly reporting periods. If the combined amount exceeds $6M, then all companies must file monthly. Failing to adhere to these reporting periods can result in late filing penalties up to 4% of the net GST/HST owing.
• The CRA has hired or repositioned more GST/HST auditors than at any other time in its history and therefore the risk of an audit is higher now than ever before and we are seeing it and hearing the same from other CPAs as well. Consider enrolling for Audit Shield, which can cover your professional fees in responding to the CRA (or any Canadian government tax authority) if they have questions about what you’ve filed. Find out more about our Audit Shield fee waiver service by clicking here.
• Consider having our in-house Indirect Tax specialist, “take a look under the hood”, to see if you’re managing your sales taxes and other indirect taxes accurately, which can help mitigate financial and business interruption risks from audits and assessments. They may even be able to recover excess GST that you’ve overpaid.
• Is your company importing goods into Canada? If so, it will need to be properly registered with the new Canada Customs system known as CARM and will have various new reporting and payment obligations. It may also have new reporting requirements under Canada’s recently enacted legislation around child and forced labor in supply chains. You may want our senior customs and trade team to “have a look under the hood” as well, to make sure your goods do not get stopped at the border or face other sanctions and penalties, but also to ensure that you’ve not overpaid any customs duties or tariffs.

Consult a Professional 

When it comes to taxes, regularly working with a qualified tax professional throughout the year can be invaluable, as they:  

• Provide expert advice specific to your situation 
• Ensure that all deadlines are met and that you remain compliant  
• Create effective tax strategies 
• Understand applicable tax deductions to help you get the most out of your return 
• Supply the most up-to-date information  
• Clarify all questions and concerns 
• Interpret company statements to provide insight into your financial position and business performance 
• Help minimize errors and audit risk 
• Setup a well-functioning accounting system and controls to take your business to the next level 

At the end of the day, working closely with a tax professional means peace of mind for the business owner. Plus, it’s always a good idea to have an expert on your side when it comes to taxes! 

Learn more about Achen Henderson now. 

By following these tips, you can help make 2024 taxes less stressful and much faster! 

Happy Taxes 

Taxes can be tricky business – they are time consuming, stressful, and sometimes frantic. However, they really don’t have to be.  

From starting early and keeping organized records to tax planning strategies, there are many things you can do in advance to remove the friction. By taking the time now to review Canadian tax deadline dates, preparing ahead of time, and working with a qualified professional, you won’t have to worry when it comes time to file for 2024.  

With this guide as your resource, you can go into each new tax season with confidence!  

Ready to get a head start on 2024 taxes or need help with 2023?