Like an idiot, I delayed filling out my tax returns until this week. I’m still not done but I was amazed at some of the new features in my tax software, TurboTax. The software can now sign you into your CRA account and then import in many of the forms and slips that you would have needed to collect separately. These include your T4 and RRSPs receipts. Incredible! I used to have to either collect the physical copy or download the PDF from various places and then gather them all up so I could enter in the info into the tax software. Now, all that is done for you and it automatically gets filled into the right places. I’d say that was more than 50% of the time I spent doing my tax return, so this year, my return will probably take less than 30 minutes in total to complete.
Now that I think about it, they should have done this a long time ago. Many of those forms and slips are already in the hands of the CRA. They already know how much I made last year. Why is the onus on me to enter in that info? The government knows, so why the farce of allowing me to tell them?
Anyways, this is a great development and if you’re still doing taxes by hand, I pity you!