I’ve been EFILE’ing tonight. The first two returns that I EFILED did not have any apparent issues and I was able to download instant assessments. The next 4 returns that I EFILED did not appear to have any issues and I received a success message in the EFILE Receipt, but when I try to download the instant assessments I am getting the following error from CRA;
TaxCycle says that an instant assessment may be available and if I review the T183 that I transmitted, I see the the relevant box in Part C is indeed ticked:
From what we have been told, you can only get the instant assessment message and the NOA (next day) if the acceptance message is # 180. That is what they call the accepted “clean” message.
Two other acceptance messages can be received:
182 = accepted with corrections or something has been flagged at CRA’s side
183 = accepted but CRA is looking for the T2201 to backup a disability claim in the return
Codes 180, 182 and 183 are the 3 EFILE acceptance messages.
I should have mentioned that CRA’s error 108 shown above triggers when making an Express NOA request and the EFILE acceptance message was not 180 (clean). We have been told that they will review the message text for next year to be more specific to the actual situation, rather than suggesting the box on the T183 was not checked.
I’m getting this when I’ve only gotten clean 180 results when getting this error. It happened again just now where I received a Error 108 on the attempt for the instant assessment message but had a clean 180 result on the preceeding EFILE:
@patrick yes! I have received this message as well. Started a week ago. All appears to be correct on the T183 part c. I had no issues before, and now I am experiencing with several returns not bring able to get enoa.
I only used eNOA once to see whether it was something that I should be doing for my clients. The initial download looked like the screenshot below, so I abandoned the idea of eNOA, since it didn’t appear to give me any helpful information.
After reading this topic, I decided to go back and re-download the eNOA, and it looks a bit different now. Still not anything that I would hand the client and say “Here is your Notice of Assessment”, but it does provide more than the initial download.
As usual, perhaps I am missing something that gives this eNOA more value than what I see on the screen.
I suspect I will only use the express NOA when they send it immediately on filing and Taxcycle prints a reasonable facsimile of the NOA that CRA send out. Even then I am not sure since the way my practice works, the clients are not sitting watching while I push the button to file
@snoplowguy The first screenshot is of the instant assessment message, which is available immediately after you EFILE, provided it yielded a clean 180 result.
The second screenshot you posted is of the Express NOA that is available a day or two after the return has been EFILED.
You and @james1 will be pleased to know that TaxCycle does have a reasonable facsimile of the standard NOA. Once you’ve downloaded the eNOA, the NOA form is available and looks reasonably nice.
FYI I find it using F4 fast find on ‘noa’, but it does not seem to appear in the search results until you tab away from the T1 Express NOA download results screen and load a different one. Perhaps doing so allows TaxCycle to fully register the fact that the eNOA has been downloaded and only then is the NOA screen available. Maybe @Cameron can comment on this aspect.
Come to think of it, these returns that I was having trouble with were for clients that I had only recently EFILED the T1013 i.e. that same night. Maybe it was taking the backend a day or two to process the T1013. Maybe I should not be too hard on CRA.
For the test case above that was giving me error 108 despite a clean 180 EFILE result with the eNOA box ticked on the T183, instant assessment results succeeded and the instant assessment message is:
Your 2016 return was assessed and a refund of $ 1853.88 will be sent on May 9, 2017.
I’ve now just emailed that to the client so that they can look forward to next Tuesday. That’s a nice little bit of value add to client communication.
FYI not all instant assessment messages have a date for when to expect the refund, which is too bad. This is the latest one that I’ve downloaded and it is much the same as the one in @snoplowguy’s screenshot:
We assessed your 2016 income tax and benefit return and calculated your balance. You have a refund of $2,044.91. We will deposit your refund into your bank account.
I just tried again for that same file and it worked without issue at 7:37 am EST.
I am wondering if it might be a time of day issue. Perhaps I’ve gotten the error after a certain time of night, but I have not been rigorous in tracking this, so I can’t say for sure.
