I have found that returns filed on Monday April 28 and Tuesday April 28 with self-employment income, and amounts payable have had a very small amount of interest payable added onto the NOA. Returns filed without self-employment income that had amounts payable do not have this issue. All have NOA dates of May 7. I only have 1 return with self-employment income and amounts owing with an NOA date of May 4, and added interest did not occur on that one.
Only one owed more than $3K the last couple years, (just very slightly over), so that’s a possibility, although there is no request for installments in their CRA mail. The others did not owe that much.
Looking at history though, it looks like the same thing happened last year, and when they paid the original amount I gave them before the interest was reversed off the account.
I have seen some express NOAs that are filed on time and assessed with no arrears interest accrued, BUT the NOA says they have until May 31st to pay. I can’t figure this out and it undermines me as I am constantly insisting that they pay by April 30th.
And then of course as with every year, most of them filed on time still have arrears interest because the express NOA is post dated. With all the advances in technology I can’t believe they still haven’t figured out how to fix this.
I have had a couple clients contact me saying the CRA charged them interest ($25 or so) for returns that were filed before April 30th and should not have had installment interest because their return the year before owed less than $3k, I told them to pay the balance due on the tax return (before April 30th) and see what the CRA did with the interest charges. Sure enough once they received the payment the CRA reversed the interest.