The Canada Revenue Agency is giving taxpayers reporting a capital gain or loss in 2024 extra time to file their returns without interest or late-filing penalties.Justin Tang/The Canadian Press
Individual taxpayers reporting a capital gain or loss in 2024 will have until June 2 to file a 2024 tax return without incurring interest or late-filing penalties, the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) revealed to Globe Advisor on Thursday. The deadline for filing an individual T1 return is April 30.
CRA spokesperson Nina Ioussoupova also says trusts reporting a capital disposition on their 2024 T3 return will have until May 1 to file without incurring interest or penalties. The deadline for filing a T3 return with a 2024 calendar year-end is March 31.
Trust returns that had already been filed using the existing 50-per-cent capital gains inclusion rate rather than the proposed two-thirds rate would not be impacted, she says.
Finally, the CRA’s interest and penalty relief to May 1 would also apply to 2025 trusts “where there is a disposition to be reported and the return has a fiscal period ending between Jan. 1, 2025, and Jan. 31, 2025,” Ms. Ioussoupova says. A trust must file a T3 return within 90 days of its year-end.
Following the government’s announcement last month that it was deferring the effective date of the capital gains inclusion rate hike to Jan. 1, 2026, from June 25, 2024, the CRA said it would revert to administering capital gains taxation under the current 50-per-cent inclusion rate for capital gains realized up until Jan. 1, 2026.
It had previously stated it would administer the proposed capital gains changes.
The CRA also said it was providing interest and late-filing penalty relief to give “impacted” individuals and trusts reporting capital dispositions additional time to meet their tax-filing obligations but had not given specific details on which taxpayers would be eligible.
The CRA said corporations could continue to use existing tax forms and software to file using the 50-per-cent inclusion rate. For corporations that had already followed the CRA’s previous guidance and filed at the two-thirds inclusion rate, the agency said it would “co-ordinate corrective reassessments to reverse the application of the two-thirds inclusion rate.”
The Liberal government announced in the 2024 federal budget it would increase the capital gains inclusion rate to 66.7 per cent from 50 per cent as of June 25, 2024, with individuals and some trusts still having access to the lower rate on annual gains of less than $250,000.
However, the government hadn’t tabled legislation to enact the change before Parliament was prorogued last month.
Earlier this week, the CRA issued the 2024 version of Schedule 3: Capital Gains or Losses (for all), which is required for reporting 2024 capital dispositions.
The 2024 Schedule 3 features separate reporting for pre-June 25 and post-June 24 capital dispositions but applies one 50-per-cent inclusion rate to the combined dispositions from both periods.
The 2024 tax-filing season begins Feb. 24, the first day 2024 tax returns can be filed online.
In a press release issued Thursday, the CRA said it had received more than 33 million income tax and benefit returns during the previous tax-filing season, which ran from February, 2024, to January, 2025. Almost 93 per cent of the returns filed last tax season were filed online, the CRA said.