We used to deliver our client’s payroll remittance by registered mail to the CRA office in Sudbury, Ontario. Due to the current strike, mailing is not an option. Can we drop off the payroll remittance (voucher and cheque) in one of the blue mailboxes in B.C.?
Outside the Vancouver or Surrey Taxation Offices, for sure. I‘ve seen people taking selfie videos of the envelope and the drop in the box. Then they have a timed shot. Never been that paranoid myself.
And, for Alberta:
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I was heading to a city over the weekend so I took advantage of this option for a client. In all my years I have never used one previously.
Hi Arliss,
CRA 2007 and 2008
I worked for one tax season at CRA in 2007 and 2008 in Calgary, at Harry Hays, when the mailrooms were still operational and when you could receive a stamped receipt for delivery. At that time you still meet in person at the counter to ask a question, make an appointment, or pay a bill. If you didn’t need a stamped receipt you could simply drop off your tax return into a special box inside the CRA Calgary Tax Services Office (TSO) during business hours or into the Canada Post box in the call. At that time each CRA TSO had similar services. The advantage of dropping of tax returns at the CRA TSO was that they were stamped received as of the date delivered to the TSO.
Later
Eventually the CRA TSP mailrooms with stamped receipts were closed, as were the counter Q+A, and the payment services. Later the dropoff box inside the CRA offices were removed.
What remained was the ability to drop off your tax return into a Canada Post mailbox without postage. These were marked as received as of the date delivered by Canada Post to the CRA destination.
During the Canada Post strike
During the period of the Canada Post strike, according to public news, no one is retrieving mail for the postal boxes or delivering any mail to the CRA postal box, ie massive dumpster containers which requires humans to deep dive into the dumpster to retrieve the mail according to my CRA training in 2007 to 2008.
Courier
Instead, during the period of the Canada Post strike, you could deliver mail via a courier to the relevant physical delivery address attention the relevant CRA service
ie CRA Tax Centre Name, T1 Processing, T2 Processing, Correspondence, ITSO, etc.
Normally, I ask for a signature whenever possible.
Alternatives
Alternately I send via CRA Rep A Client document upload with confirmation number if available or via Fax using MyFax, https://www.myfax.com/, by submitting a scanned document uploaded to the MyFax Server with a receipt of fax delivered.
Please note that the document uploads are routed electronically.
Faxes, during 2007 and 2008 and currently to the best of my knowledge go to banks of printers in a printer room where they are spit out a paper, assembled by humans, and then routed to mail sorting. I spent one week in such a printer room chasing after paper, assembling documents, stampling sets, and routing mailing, The fax method was very error prone and not recommended unless routed to a specific person.
Hope this clarifies matters.
Are you saying those blue CRA boxes outside the TSO’s are not being emptied? I’m not sure I understand. Mrs spg was hoping to head into St Catharines on Thursday with a pile of Source Deduction cheques along with home made PD7A forms for the clients who do not pay their source deductions with the Can-act system.
If Canadian businesses were any good at organizing and cooperating with each other, I would suggest all government payments for all Canadian businesses get paid into trust until the strike is over. See how long the strike lasts when the money stops flowing.
Well shucks.
Essentially that is just a blue Canada Post box then?
Oh well. It will get there when it gets there then.
Submitting documents to CRA
If you are unable to make other arrangements to submit forms or other documents to the CRA while the postal strike is underway, you may be able to deposit your forms at a CRA drop box. Items deposited are date stamped with the date received. Please consult the drop box webpage in advance to confirm there is a location near you. Note, there is no walk-in counter service at these locations. https://www.canada.ca/en/revenue-agency/news/newsroom/canada-post-mail-service-disruption-impact-cra.html
Certainly this means they must be emptying those boxes…
Do not know about other provinces, but the Alberta Government also has places to drop off mail, including for Corporate Tax Administration. and you can also receive Government mail there…
The service disruption, which began November 15, 2024, is a result of a labour dispute between Canada Post and the Canadian Union of Postal Workers (CUPW).
To mitigate the effects of the service interruption, the Government of Alberta will activate its mail services contingency plan effective November 19.
Additional information will be published as it is required or becomes available.
Sending and receiving government mail
Government mail will continue to be accepted from Albertans at designated Alberta government offices across the province to ensure it reaches the proper destination. No stamps are required.
Albertans who receive mail from the provincial government will receive a notification indicating where and when they can pick their mail. Alberta’s government will never ask for personal information over the phone or for anyone to click on a link in an email.
Non-essential mail will be held by the originating department until Canada Post mail service resumes.
See a list of government mail drop locations below (Effective November 19)
I don’t believe Canada Post has anything to do with those blue boxes outside the TSO’s. I’ve happened to be there when someone comes out of the TSO, opens the full length front of the blue box, pulls out the box on wheels, replaces it with an empty one and wheels the full one back into the TSO.
One time it was at midnight on April 30. I’d just dropped a few paper returns and was leaving when it happened.
And, if you are dealing with CRA on an active case, and you do not have RAC access on that client, there is a CRA Secure Drop Zone…
https://www.canada.ca/en/revenue-agency/services/e-services/secure-drop-zone.html
In Moncton, NB… I was told that Audit division was upstairs and that they opened the box daily and redistributed the CRA mail to whatever dept… but that was Pre Covid… we lost our box during Covid but it magically reappeared after Covid… so that leads me to believe real people upstairs are getting our mail but How it gets to the appropriate tax center from their office might be tricky if they use Canada post.