Tax Preparers near you

The Canada Revenue Agency's EFILE service is what lets a preparer transmit your return electronically. Any firm, organization or individual providing tax preparation services can apply, provided they meet the agency's definition and requirements for an applicant and pass its suitability screening, and those intending to transmit returns apply for an EFILE number. It is a reasonable question to ask a preparer directly, and it also explains why a preparer cannot simply file on your behalf without being set up for it.

Access to your tax account is separate from filing. Rather than sharing your own sign-in credentials, you authorize a representative, and the agency offers different levels: on a personal account, one level allows access to information only and another allows access plus certain account changes. Business accounts add a level that can delegate authority to further representatives. You can review the authorizations on your account and cancel them, which is worth doing when you change preparers or after a one-off engagement ends.

Some preparers offer to pay you your refund on the spot instead of waiting for the assessment. That arrangement is called discounting, and it is governed by the federal Tax Rebate Discounting Act rather than left to the parties. The Canada Revenue Agency explains that a discounter calculates your expected refund and gives you one up-front payment before filing the return, that the Act sets minimum proportions of the estimated refund they must pay you, and that where the actual refund turns out to be materially larger they must pay you the difference, excluding refund interest. The discounter must give you a completed and signed Form RC71, Statement of Discounting Transaction, and afterwards a further form showing the actual refund.

Beyond discounting, be wary of the promises made in season. Nobody can know your refund before your information has been looked at, and a preparer who quotes a figure from the doorway is guessing. Treat as warning signs a refusal to give you a full copy of the filed return, a refund directed to the preparer's account rather than yours, a blank or pre-signed authorization form, or a suggestion that expenses or credits can be claimed without the supporting documents to back them up. The return is filed in your name, and the consequences of an unsupported claim land on you.

Certified tax software handles a straightforward salaried return well, and many people file their own for years without difficulty. Its weakness is that it answers the questions you know to ask: it will not notice that a rental was converted from personal use, that a spousal claim would be better split differently, or that a slip is missing. A preparer adds a second pair of eyes and the experience of having seen the situation before.

The step up to an accountant is worth taking when the tax question is entangled with a decision. Selling a business or a property, incorporating, working across a border, settling an estate or facing an audit are situations where the return is the last step rather than the whole job, and where advice before year end would have been worth more than careful data entry after it. A capable preparer will tell you when you have reached that point, and the better ones say so unprompted.

Personal tax work is squeezed into a few weeks, and the consequences are predictable. Appointments fill, seasonal staff are less experienced than the practitioners who train them, and a complicated return handed in at the end of the rush gets the least attention. If your return involves a business, a rental, investments sold or a year with a big change in it, book early and hand over complete information; if the file is late and complex, ask what the preparer's plan is rather than assuming it will be squeezed in.

The quieter months are the right time for anything that is not a routine return: catching up on unfiled years, sorting out correspondence from the tax authority, adjusting a previous return, or talking through a change that is coming. Preparers who work year-round can do that; a purely seasonal operation may be closed when the letter arrives, which is a fair thing to ask about before you engage one.