Today, we’re unlocking a whole bunch of useful information by getting you access to your My CRA account. Is it necessary for your day to day living? No, probably not. Will it take a little while to get it all set up? Yup, it’s the government, after all. But is it important? You betcha.

Why is this important?

You’ve probably already guessed that most of what you’ll find in your CRA account is related to your taxes, it’s also the key to a bunch of information you’ve probably needed to track down before for one reason or another and will likely need to track down again in the future.

Was your tax return filed?
What’s the number on line 150 of your most recent tax return?
Are you being reassessed?
Do you have to pay tax in installments? When are they due?
How much are you getting from things like the Canada Child Benefit or HST rebate and when will they be deposited?
Change your direct deposit information
Change a previously filed tax return
See if you have any uncashed cheques
Download past notices of assessment
See how much RRSP room you have
See how much TFSA room you have

Think of making sure you have access to your CRA account as preventative planning. There might not be anything you urgently need from it…now. But when you DO need something quickly, already having access to the place where it’s stored is golden. Do your future self a favour by setting it up now.

What can this tell you or your financial planner?

If you’re doing your own planning, or you’ve hired a financial planner to help you, having access to this account will help you with most of the relevant income tax information you’ll need and even some of the cash flow information.

For example, a financial planner might want to know what your pension adjustment and RRSP contribution room was last year so they can properly estimate what it will be this year (and avoid overcontributions). Or they might want to know how much you’re receiving from the Canada Child Benefit to help with monthly budgeting.

Set up Access to your cra Account

You can set up your CRA Account in a few different ways, depending on your preferences and what’s available to you. Before you start, do you have a secure method of saving and protecting your passwords? I use an online password manager so I have access to it no matter what device I’m using, and because let’s face it, I can’t be trusted with a piece of paper or a spreadsheet on my hard drive.

Digital Process

This is the fastest way to get access to the nerdy treasure trove that is your CRA Account. If you bank at one of the big five banks, Vancity, Wealthsimple, Tangerine, Simplii, or one of the credit unions who act as CRA Sign-in partners, you can use your online banking credentials to set up the account, and your cell phone to verify your identity documents.

It takes approximately 10 minutes if you have your SIN and Drivers License handy.

Hybrid Process

If you’d rather not use your bank account to log in, and don’t fancy taking a picture of your ID with your phone, you can set up a CRA user ID and password online (use your password manager to save it) and request that a security code gets mailed to you (but make sure your address is up to date first!)

Once your code arrives in the mail, sign in to the CRA account you set up and use the code to verify your identity. The code will expire eventually, so use it as soon as you get it.

This process takes approximately ten days…well, ten CRA days. Mark your calendar for three weeks from when you requested the code to start watching for it in the mail.

Analog Process

There’s no analog version of a CRA account, so if you’d rather not go online for any of this information - which is entirely fine and a choice you should feel 100% comfortable with - you’re going to have to be extra careful to keep all of the separate physical pieces of information organized, accessible, and secure.