General Waiver of late penalties and interest

How long has this existed?

In a CRA announcement, they are providing a general waiver of all late filing fees and interest on returns that are filed after the June 1, 2020 or June 15, 2020, deadline so long as it is filed and the amounts owing are paid before September 1, 2020?

Hi, Cory …

Back on March 18th when the Gov’t first announced the extension to June 1st, they said that tax balances and instalments may be deferred till September 1st without interest or penalties. This most recent announcement on May 22nd was made to confirm this and to encourage people to try to file their returns by the June 1st deadline to allow for credits to be processed correctly. Judging by the headline they used in their email to tax practitioners, “Why file by the deadline if no payment is due until September 1”, I’m guessing many Canadians read between the lines (possibly even posting this on the CRA Twitter feed ?), recognizing that they really had until Sept. 1st to file since that’s the date penalties and interest would actually start. I’m guessing CRA made this announcement to acknowledge this truth, and simply wanted to stress that that credits assessed starting June will be temporarily affected until the 2019 return is received, thus encouraging people to make an effort to file on time so that credits can be accurately determined. Hope this helps.

Gerry

I understand that. But they also said that they would assess all the benefits for 2020 on the 2018 income and then either claw back over payments or reduce or increase payments moving forward.

Seems to me that they just don’t want to say September 1, 2020.

US (not that I want to compare us to them) extended 90 days and the Canada looks foolish at 30 days. Even the CPA body tried to get them match what seems to be a more reasonable standard extension.

I may be wrong, but I don’t believe that it says anywhere that penalties for late T1135s will be waived…
Or indeed that they would be required to honor late filed elections in other matters…

Information returns, elections, designations and information requests – Deadlines

The waiver of penalties and interest for 2019 T1 individual returns and trust returns described above also applies to form T1135 and any elections, forms and schedules that must be filed with the return, provided that they are filed by September 1, 2020.

https://www.canada.ca/en/revenue-agency/campaigns/covid-19-update/covid-19-filing-payment-dates.html

Yes, thanks - that section had not opened/expanded for me on the first browser
(Information returns, elections, designations and information requests – Deadlines)
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You are correct that it specifically mentions T1135 (“also applies to form T1135”) (Including corporate T1135s)
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However, also note that, under " Penalties and interest relief for extended deadlines", it also says:
"Penalties and interest relief will be considered on a case-by-case basis for income tax balances that are not listed above."
Because of that, caution still needs to be exercised.
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Also, “due date” (defined in the ACT), and general press release statements of “Penalties and interest will not be applied if …” do have different legal meanings.
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Therefore, personally, as much as I may dislike dealing with “due date” issues this very week, I assure you I would dislike very much more dealing with “due date” vs “penalties will not be applied” issues between taxpayers and CRA during September 2020, October 2020, November 2020, December 2020…