scrubbedexpat091

Have you checked your notice of assessment? It will indicate if they mistakenly kept $400 because of the GST owed, or if they assessed differently vs simple tax. Simple tax never seems to get our taxes correctly, CRA always does a re-assessment and its just simple income on a T4 with nothing else like deductions, so not sure my simple tax is getting it wrong on such simple returns.

If it is a CRA mistake, I would call them, my experience has been when they make a mistake it sits there until you notify them of their mistake.

beckiwoo

I spoke with a human yesterday (surprised some of the CRA call centre staff work on Saturdays)

The amount from my return minus the amount in my account was exactly (to the penny) what I owed back in GST. I was informed that the GST amount will come back to me on April 3 (the next GST payment date). Its annoying because if I knew they would just take the $400 out of my return I would have just let them do that

I cant see the NOA its not available until tomorrow but then again I have never had any issues with Simple Tax.

Paul_Shepherd

I detest this time of year! The thing I don't get with this taxes thing here in Canada, is if they know exactly how much we owe, or should get to be refunded, why do we have to spend time calculating it for them to many times disagree? If they are always right couldn't they just tell us??.

ts a crazy system....the HMRC tax code system seem way more efficient to me.

CanadaJimmy

There have even been stories where they think they are right and you are wrong, despite you having filed correctly, then later on backtracking and trying to charge people penalties for their own mistakes.

There was a whole thread on reddit on this topic:
https://www.reddit.com/r/canada/comm..._do_our_taxes/

As well as this video (from a US perspective):

scrubbedexpat091

I still need to call and figure out why the spousal amount was lowered, they never explain why the change was made, its the only thing CRA changed, everything is else is the same, but the lowered spousal amount requires paying them back $157.

In all my years in the US, IRS never changed my return, seems to be a near annual thing with CRA and sometimes its 2-3 tax years later when they randomly do it. Its not like our taxes are complicated, I fill in the numbered boxes based on my T4, and tax software does the rest, we have no deductions or investments, nothing, straight income.

beckiwoo

Update on my NOA:

It does state the $400 was taken out of my refund for the GST overpayment

I will now wait until April 3 for that money to come back via GST payment (on my account it does state the balance as ‘CR $400’ - so I’m guessing that a good thing?!)

What have I learnt through this..? Tell CRA as soon as possible after your relationship status changes and not wait until you are about to file for next years taxes