What's the point of Auto-Fill for T's Slips??? | Income tax filing | Discussion forum

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What's the point of Auto-Fill for T's Slips???
April 6, 2024
12:09 pm
MDJ
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Firstly I have only used auto fill once in my life time.
It was missing 2 T slips and had to enter manually and for some reason would not allow me to auto fill for my spouse.

So to be consistent I decided to enter manually ever after.

I usually do taxes in the last week of March. I keep a record of T slips to be expected and I had all of them. But I don't record the date of receipt.

This year seems to have a fiasco with T5's from Access and I don't know if I should expect revised ones or not.

Looking at some other posts what I now see on my CRA account that "if" it did auto fill I would have had to have waited until April 3 2023.

Access T's processed on CRA on Mar 1 and Apr 3
Home Bank T's processed on CRA on Mar 8
Home Trust T's processed on CRA on Mar 8
Peoples Trust T's processed on CRA on March 27
Government T's processed on CRA on Jan 12 Jan 16 Jan 18

April 6, 2024
12:16 pm
savemoresaveoften
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MDJ said
Firstly I have only used auto fill once in my life time.
It was missing 2 T slips and had to enter manually and for some reason would not allow me to auto fill for my spouse.

So to be consistent I decided to enter manually ever after.

I usually do taxes in the last week of March. I keep a record of T slips to be expected and I had all of them. But I don't record the date of receipt.

This year seems to have a fiasco with T5's from Access and I don't know if I should expect revised ones or not.

Looking at some other posts what I now see on my CRA account that "if" it did auto fill I would have had to have waited until April 3 2023.

Access T's processed on CRA on Mar 1 and Apr 3
Home Bank T's processed on CRA on Mar 8
Home Trust T's processed on CRA on Mar 8
Peoples Trust T's processed on CRA on March 27
Government T's processed on CRA on Jan 12 Jan 16 Jan 18  

Even if u wait till Apr30, onus is on the filer to make sure all receipts are included in their tax return, whether CRA shows it or not via autofill is not relevant. If they determine you miss a slip at reassessment, you owe interest on top.
Safe to say all FI supposed to submit receipt by Mar 31 including T3s, but who knows how CRA upload them to the specific account / SIN#. And CRA makes it clear they are NOT responsible for autofill slips to be complete set at any time.

April 7, 2024
11:08 am
AltaRed
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I only tried AutoFill once a number of years ago and it was not ready for prime time. T5 slips in USD were not automatically converted to CAD, etc. That may have changed in the past 5 years or so but I prefer manual entry.

Until, and only if, there is a mandatory requirement for FIs to send all tax slip data to CRA on a timely basis, or suffer severe financial penalties, and until CRA can guarantee its computers, err monkeys, load the data automatically on MyAccount, there is no way to rely on completeness.

I suppose AutoFill is useful for those with 30 tax slips but I'd suggest if people have that many tax slips, they should be thinking about consolidation of accounts. Having the tax slips on CRA MyAccount though can be somewhat useful as a check against one's own collection of slips, and I suppose it is useful for snowbirds who are not home until early April and/or still have some tax slips come in paper form via Canada Post. I don't think I will ever try it again though.

April 7, 2024
12:41 pm
MDJ
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Another thought too......auto fill for T5's will still take, no matter what, manual entry to do the spit.

April 7, 2024
1:55 pm
Alexandre
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I do like Auto-fill and I do use it every year. I find it ironic that FIs and employers upload info to CRA, I download it to tax software, tax software uploads it back to CRA - and that is how I file taxes.
As I usually end owing to CRA, I am in no hurry to file taxes and can wait till all or most of forms are in my CRA My Account.

I hope that one day people running CRA will also realize the irony of that and start offering automatic tax filing for simple tax returns at least.

April 7, 2024
5:09 pm
savemoresaveoften
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I use autofill as a check against what I enter the tax software.
And given I don’t file until last day, autofill serves that purpose quite well.
No it feeds exact numbers as they receive, will not adjust a usd slip into cad for you.

April 29, 2024
9:18 am
Lodown
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April 29, 2024
10:02 am
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savemoresaveoften said
I use autofill as a check against what I enter the tax software.
And given I don’t file until last day, autofill serves that purpose quite well.
No it feeds exact numbers as they receive, will not adjust a usd slip into cad for you.  

Good luck with autofill if you are Hubert customer.
Did anybody see Adjusted T5 (correct one)? I would never rely on any kind of 'autofill'. It might be a good check point but I want to see ALL my slips in paper or downloaded before filing taxes.

And since you wait until last tax date (I filed few days ago) WHY they show notice of assessment to be issues on May 2 while most other years I had exact date as filing date (but I was never as late as this year)? And payment due date as May 22. Can I trust them???? Aren't you suppose to pay what you own before Apr 30?

April 29, 2024
9:53 pm
BK
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The date you are referring to is the Express NOA date. It is calculated based on the info they had at the time you filed and had not yet paid your amount due. If you don't pay the tax owing by Apr. 30th, the May 22 date that you refer to is the date that you must pay by from your notice and it will also include interest owing.

April 30, 2024
4:44 am
pwm
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I do taxes for me and my wife and several other family members. I have never tried auto-fill, and would never trust it. I have a spreadsheet with a list of all the T slips I expect to get, as well as some other relevant items on it which I print every year and check off as the slips arrive. I can't really see the point of auto-fill, because one would likely verify that the numbers were correct before filing, so where is the time saving?

April 30, 2024
6:26 am
savemoresaveoften
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Autofill basically design for someone who either only has employment income, or someone who receives govt handouts. If one has T3 and T5, have to watch it like a hawk.
It cant populate my T5013 properly for the last few years.

April 30, 2024
7:07 am
Alexandre
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pwm said
I do taxes for me and my wife and several other family members. I have never tried auto-fill, and would never trust it. I have a spreadsheet with a list of all the T slips I expect to get, as well as some other relevant items on it which I print every year and check off as the slips arrive. I can't really see the point of auto-fill, because one would likely verify that the numbers were correct before filing, so where is the time saving?  

I assume your wife and family members appreciate you saving their time by filing their numbers in tax returns, instead of them doing it.

May 5, 2024
9:59 pm
Hmm
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Auto-fill works GREAT, unless you have a dumb-ass tax preparation application like StudioTax. FI have until Feb 28/29 to upload their slips to CRA.

StudioTax, in particular, can be a headache. It automatically fills in the same data info every time you use the feature. It's too stupid to compare and merge. It even throws in errors like RRSP contribution limits from your previous tax return, which you're forced to deal with by unticking the "add to return". Plus, there are other glitches you have to manually untick to get the auto-fill to work. These bugs been hanging around for ages with StudioTax, unfortunately.

May 5, 2024
10:02 pm
Hmm
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Lodown said
CRA states T5 slips are to be on the CRA website by the end of February. So why don't they fine the banks that regularly miss this T5 deadline like they CAN for T4 slips? Who did the banks pay off?  

For the same reason the Feds have said "harsher" penalties against airlines for customer related issues including delays and more would be "unfair".

May 5, 2024
10:08 pm
Hmm
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Alexandre said
I hope that one day people running CRA will also realize the irony of that and start offering automatic tax filing for simple tax returns at least.  

I heard they are thinking of undertaking a pilot project of sorts for this, but it would only apply to ultra-low income earners.

Meanwhile, in many other countries, the government files your taxes (on your behalf) for free. If you have claims, expenses, and more that they don't capture, you then file the return (for free with tax software or via government website) and add the additional data.

Of course, that's too logical for Uncle Sam in the USA and CRA's overpaid executive bureaucrats.

June 25, 2024
6:34 pm
everhopeful
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I think it would be great to abandon the traditional tax return for most, my idea would be the following:

After receiving tax information from FI's, employers, and other programs during the month of January, have CRA send each taxpayer a statement of account in February.

If the taxpayer finds all information to be accurate and complete, they can confirm that online by phone or mail, and finalize the return. (receive their refund or have until April 30 to pay tax owing)

If there is missing or incorrect information, give the taxpayer until the end of April to submit documentation or otherwise resolve the issue with CRA and then finalize the return.

This would have the millions of taxpayers with simple returns avoiding the need to purchase software or using a tax service to handle their returns.

I would still leave the option open for those with complex returns (or just love filing taxes) to have until the end of April to submit a tax return prepared by software or a tax professional. But I have a feeling that number would decline significantly over time.

June 25, 2024
10:22 pm
Norman1
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everhopeful said

If the taxpayer finds all information to be accurate and complete, they can confirm that online by phone or mail, and finalize the return. (receive their refund or have until April 30 to pay tax owing)

Canadian taxpayer cannot just eyeball the tax slips and determine that a return is one of the optimal returns, without understanding and doing the return.

Doesn't matter what other countries do. Those countries that have government filed returns may have tax laws that don't have any room for tax planning.

Canada used to have simplified T1 special returns. I looked at them and found them to be garbage. I would end up paying more if I used those "simplified" returns instead of the full T1 General returns.

June 25, 2024
10:42 pm
everhopeful
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Their internal systems could be quite easily programmed to check each persons return against the credits and programs offered. I find it quite unjust that taxpayers are expected to buy tax software or hire a tax expert to pay their fair amount of tax. If our government is hoping we don't know or notice applicable deductions, how can we trust them to regulate greedy corporations that try to do unfair business practices?

June 26, 2024
12:19 am
HermanH
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everhopeful said
If our government is hoping we don't know or notice applicable deductions, how can we trust them to regulate greedy corporations that try to do unfair business practices?  

I don't believe that is the current trend. Supposedly, CRA wants to auto-file returns for many folks who do not file their own. These non-reporters are supposedly in the lower socio-economic strata and stand to gain refunds from credits. I think CBC reported that the program would send out about $1.6B to non-filers.

June 26, 2024
7:00 am
AltaRed
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Per post #19, I don't think that is the current trend either.

The bigger problem is the complexity of the Income Tax Act with all of its targeted benefits and exceptions designed by politicians to cater to, or target, certain groups, and that the tax system is based on individuals rather than families such as filing jointly (as in the USA). I suspect a mere fraction of tax returns could be automatically generated and populated with the right data. Populating the return with tax slip data is only the beginning of tax return preparation for the majority of tax returns.

A total overhaul of the ITA would need to be done and that isn't going to happen until the sun rises in the West and sets in the East.

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