My T4 became available online today which meant I could do a rough calculation of income tax return for 2020. I write rough because not all my receipts and forms have been sent to me. For example, my charitable donation receipt isn’t available yet but it’s fairly easy to calculate it down to the correct dollar. I also don’t have all my receipts for the savings account interest I accrued for the year. These amounts are marginal though and won’t swing my return one way or the other too far.
Using some tax software, I discovered that in my current situation, I would owe the government of Canada another $450 or so. I won’t find any more tax credits hiding in my couch anywhere, if anything the accurate calculation might show I owe even more. Since it was easy to do, I ran the calculation again but this time I added in another $5,000 worth of RRSP contributions. This turned an amount owing to a refund of about $1,400. This was good enough for me, I didn’t want to fiddle with the contribution amount too much and I also need to factor in some breathing room, because the numbers aren’t firm yet.
I then went online to contribute another $5,000 to my employer RRSP. There’s still well over a week, almost two weeks until the RRSP deadline at the end of the month, so I can relax now. Once all my official receipts and forms are available, I’ll re-visit my return and enter in the official numbers. I can now complete my return at my leisure.