First-time filers
If this is your first Canadian tax return, the most useful thing to know is that filing is worth doing even when you earned very little, or nothing at all. A return is what turns on the benefits and credits you are entitled to — the quarterly credit payments, the Canada Child Benefit if you have children, and the Ontario Trillium Benefit. It also starts building the RRSP room and tuition credits you will use in later years. Most first returns are straightforward, and the paperwork is smaller than people expect: often a T4 from your job, a tuition slip if you studied, and proof of your address.
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This is the single most common thing first-time filers get wrong. Benefits are not automatic — the CRA works out what you are owed from the return you file, so if you do not file, nothing arrives. Someone who worked a few months, or not at all, is often owed money rather than owing it.
The credits are also retroactive within limits, so a first return can bring in payments that have been sitting unclaimed. If you have never filed and you are a few years into living or working here, that is worth a conversation.
It is less than you think. Bring what you have and we will tell you what is missing:
Tuition is the big one. If you paid tuition and did not earn enough to use the credit, it does not disappear — it carries forward to a future year when you are working full time, which is exactly when it is most useful. It can also sometimes be transferred to a parent or grandparent.
Rent is the other. Rent paid in Ontario feeds the Trillium Benefit, and a lot of first-time filers leave it blank because it does not feel like a tax thing. Moving expenses, medical costs and, in some situations, transit are all worth mentioning too.
If your first return is also several years overdue, that is fine and it is common. We file multiple years together routinely, and being behind does not cost you the credits in most cases — it just delays them. There is no lecture here.
See our page on prior-year returns if that is your situation.
What it costs. A return with no income at all is $40, and a return with one T4 is $45. If you are filing several years at once, each year is priced at our standard rates. Your exact price is confirmed before we start.
See the full price listYes, and it is probably the most valuable return you will file. Benefits and credits are calculated from your return, so filing at zero income is what turns them on. People in this position are usually owed money.
Only in that your tuition slip matters. If you are an international student, our international student page covers the residency questions that apply to you.
Not for a first return — there is no previous year. From next year on it is useful, because it carries your RRSP room and anything carried forward.
Set up direct deposit with the CRA and it arrives in your bank account. We can walk you through it; it is faster and safer than waiting on a cheque.
It is fixable, and you are not the first. We file the outstanding years together and in most cases the credits still come through, just later than they should have.
Yes. Everything can be done remotely — forms online, documents by upload, email or WhatsApp, and a phone call if you want one.
A free, no-obligation consultation — in person in Kitchener-Waterloo, or entirely online from anywhere in Canada. Complete information means we can start the same day.
Book a Free Consultation Benefits and credits explained If you are behind on filing What to bring to your appointment