You get 90 days from the CRA's confirmation or reassessment to file a notice of appeal. You must have objected first — the Tax Court cannot hear an appeal from an assessment you never objected to. Choose the right procedure and a modest dispute costs very little to run.
Our charges include applicable taxes. Disbursements are extra and billed at cost — itemized upfront, in writing, never hidden.
From $563.87 taxes included
The Tax Court of Canada hears appeals from assessments under the Income Tax Act, the Excise Tax Act and several other federal statutes. It is a real court with judges, pleadings and evidence, and it is entirely independent of the Canada Revenue Agency.
An objection is a precondition. You appeal within 90 days after the CRA sends its notice of confirmation or its reassessment following your objection. Alternatively, if 90 days have passed since you filed the objection and the CRA has not decided it, you can appeal without waiting — a useful option when a file has been sitting for a year.
If you are late, you may apply for an extension of time to appeal, and that application must be made within one year after the 90-day appeal deadline expired. As with objections, once that outer year closes there is nothing left to argue. Deadlines in tax are jurisdictional; sympathy does not extend them.
For income tax appeals, the informal procedure is available where the federal tax and penalties in dispute for each taxation year, excluding interest, are $25,000 or less, or where the loss in issue is $50,000 or less. Each year is looked at separately, so a multi-year appeal can still qualify. You can also limit your claim to the threshold and give up the excess to stay informal.
The informal procedure has no filing fee, relaxed rules of evidence, no examinations for discovery, and allows you to be represented by an agent rather than counsel. Hearings come on faster and judgments are not treated as binding precedent. For a disputed home office deduction or a denied disability tax credit, it is the right forum by a wide margin.
The general procedure is full litigation: pleadings, lists of documents, examinations for discovery, and costs awards against the loser. Filing fees are $250 where the amount in issue is under $50,000, $400 from $50,000 up to $150,000, and $550 at $150,000 or more. Appeals from general procedure judgments go to the Federal Court of Appeal.
The Minister pleads the assumptions of fact relied on when assessing, and the taxpayer generally bears the onus of demolishing them. In practice that means the appeal is won on evidence: invoices, contracts, bank records, mileage logs, contemporaneous notes, and witnesses who can speak to what was actually done. A legally elegant argument sitting on top of an undocumented factual claim loses.
Some issues shift the burden. Where the CRA has assessed a gross negligence penalty, or reassessed a statute-barred year, it must establish the facts justifying that step. Those are among the most winnable parts of a tax dispute and they are worth pleading separately even where the underlying reassessment is strong.
Most appeals settle. But settlement in tax is constrained: the Crown cannot compromise on a purely commercial basis, and a settlement has to be defensible on the facts and the law. That means 'split the difference' offers are unavailable, and the leverage comes from showing that a particular factual finding is likely.
It cannot review a refusal of taxpayer relief on penalties and interest. Those are discretionary decisions of the Minister, reviewed by the Federal Court on judicial review. Filing them in the Tax Court loses time and gets the appeal struck.
It cannot deal with collection action, garnishments or payment arrangements, and it cannot order the CRA to behave better. Its jurisdiction is the correctness of the assessment. Where the assessment is right but the CRA's conduct was poor, the remedies live elsewhere.
And it cannot vacate a nil assessment, because there is nothing to appeal from when no tax is assessed. That surprises taxpayers who want a loss year corrected; the route there is a loss determination, requested separately.
Our tax consult is $563.87, taxes included, and produces a written memo on the merits, the right procedure, and the realistic cost of running it. Court filing fees and disbursements are billed separately at cost.
Ninety days from the date the CRA sends its notice of confirmation or the reassessment issued in response to your objection. You can also appeal at any time after 90 days have passed since you filed the objection, if the CRA has not yet decided it. If you miss the 90 days, an application to extend must be brought within one year after that deadline expired, and you must show you intended to appeal and applied as soon as you reasonably could.
Yes. A valid notice of objection is a precondition to an appeal to the Tax Court for income tax and for GST/HST. The Court has no jurisdiction over an assessment you never objected to, and no amount of merit cures that. If your objection deadline has passed, the first step is an application for an extension of time to object — not a notice of appeal. Getting this sequence wrong is one of the most common ways self-represented taxpayers lose good cases.
It is the Tax Court's simplified track, available for income tax appeals where the federal tax and penalties in dispute for each taxation year, excluding interest, are $25,000 or less, or the loss in issue is $50,000 or less. There is no filing fee, no discovery, relaxed evidence rules, and you may be represented by an agent. Use it for smaller disputes. The trade-offs are that judgments are not precedential and your ability to recover costs is limited.
There is no filing fee under the informal procedure. Under the general procedure the fee depends on the amount in issue: $250 where it is under $50,000, $400 where it is $50,000 or more but under $150,000, and $550 where it is $150,000 or more. Those are court fees only. The real cost of a general procedure appeal is discovery and trial preparation, and the losing party can be ordered to contribute to the winner's costs.
Generally you do. The Minister sets out the assumptions of fact relied on in assessing, and the taxpayer carries the initial onus of showing those assumptions are wrong. There are important exceptions: where the CRA has assessed a gross negligence penalty or has reassessed outside the normal reassessment period, it must prove the facts that justify doing so. Identifying which parts of your appeal carry a reversed burden usually reshapes the strategy.
Open your file tonight — a licensed Ontario lawyer will confirm everything with you by tomorrow.