MADPUPPIES2

Can anyone tell me please, my friend hasnt filed her taxes since moving here two years ago as she wasnt sure how to do it. Can taxes only be filed in March April so does she have to wait until then and if I am right will she have penalties to pay for not filing them. Any advice would be great:

JonboyE

You can file your taxes at any time. Your friend should get them done as soon as possible. If they owe money there will be penalties for late filing and interest on the amount owing. However, if they do not owe tax on filing there are no penalties.

MADPUPPIES2

thank you we did ours through hr block, do they do them this time of year or who would they get them done through, a solicitor??

JonboyE

Not a solicitor, and not H&R Block for the first year in Canada. Find a small local accountant. They will be a bit more expensive than H&R Block (but maybe not much). However, they are likely to get it done correctly.

Lord Vader

does anyone else see an add for late tax filing at the bottom of the page? never mind, gone now, but I did see one.

Novocastrian

It's back again. Effing adverts.

MADPUPPIES2

Thanks dont you like H&R????

Aviator

Not the first place I would go, or last come to that.

JonboyE

It is not that I don't like H&R Block though obviously they are competition so you have to take this into account.

The thing you need to consider is that H&R Block people are trained (very well) to deal with the standard tax filings that regular Canadians do year after year. If you have a T4, some medical expenses, tuition fees, charitable donations, and maybe some RRSP investments then H&R Block will do a great job in filing your taxes.

However if there is anything unusual, such as immigrating during the year, then you are unlikely to be dealing with someone who knows what to do.

Keith

I do my taxes online and you can file for 2008, 2009 and 2010 with Turbotax.

http://turbotax.intuit.ca/personal-t...onal-taxes.jsp

Pretty Flowers

I entrusted the care of my taxes to HR Block twice. This was because I'm terrible at filing on time, and needed proof that my taxes were up to date.

Both times they filed my taxes incorrectly, and the second time I filed, it delayed reimbursement of my taxes by more than a year. They also managed to lose my paperwork in that time.

I've learnt my lesson and now always file on time, and would never use them again. These experiences were both from using different offices by the way....

I would argue against them being well trained considering the fact that they failed to recognise that I was a new immigrant, meaning that I lost out on a deductible. This should have been fairly obvious to them as at the time I had a 9 starting social security number, and explicitly told them that it was my first year in Canada and my first year of filing.

I'm sure other people's experience of them may differ, but I've only found them to be worse than incompetent.

Auld Yin

I believe that one cannot file the first tax return ever electronically.

Alan2005

You can still use things like turbo tax though. You can download the PDF, print it and then send it in by post.

JonboyE

Can you netfile a return using Turbo Tax this late? E-file, the version professional tax preparers use, is only open between mid February and mid October for the previous year. I have to submit 2010 and earlier tax returns on paper now.

Alan2005

Not sure about turbo tax as I used UFile last year. Their website at least indicates that it supports prior years back to 2000; although I doubt it supports netfiling and probably requires you to download and mail it in yourself. Still, in the OP's position I'd take a look at the on-line tax websites; especially as you don't pay until you want to file so you can find out if it meets your requirements first.