Checking Tax Slips when Preparing a Return

For practitioners preparing tax returns for clients, one good practice to ensure that your clients have provided all tax slips is to view, download and/or retrieve these slips directly through CRA’s Auto-fill feature. 

Tax slips are prepared by employers, payers, or various plan administrators and are useful when preparing a taxpayer’s return.  Taxpayers should have received most of their slips (including T4, T4A, and T5 slips) by the end of February or early March.  Whereas T3 and T5013 slips should have been received before the end of March or early April.

Checking tax slips can be done by viewing the hard copy or electronically in either of two ways:

1. The practitioner, when authorized by their client, can use the CRA Auto-fill My Return service which is a secure service that allows individuals and authorized representatives using certified software, to automatically fill in parts of an income tax and benefit return with information that the CRA has available at the time of populating the return.
   
   Note that current year and prior year old age security (OAS), employment insurance (EI) and Canada Pension Plan (CPP) tax slips can also be obtained electronically by visiting Service Canada.
    
2. Encourage the client to register for the CRA My Account for Individuals service which allows them to view their tax information online.  Have the client also verify that their slips match what is provided to the practitioner.

Remember, tax returns must still be filed on time even when tax slips are missing.  Planning ahead can help manage the workflow and ensure that clients are fully prepared when tax season comes around.