CRA Audit

CRA Audit?

It is hard to imagine anything more stressful than finding out that CRA wants to do a GST audit of your business. No matter how good or not-so-good your books may be, a CRA audit can be a very expensive cost of doing business.

A CRA auditor’s job rating depends upon how much tax they assess and how many of their audits result in assessments. Higher up the ladder, CRA bases its executive bonuses on how the audit programs do achieving their “targets”.

CRA Audit Help

While most auditors are reasonable, all of them are under pressure to produce and they make mistakes. Sometimes they request too much information, even though CRA has committed to keep their information requests to the minimum needed to do their job.

As a business owner, you [a] don’t want to have to deal with the auditor at all, and [b] need someone to be the go-between. And what better than a businessman and former CRA auditor?

What to Do if You are Selected

Being selected for an audit can happen for many reasons. Sometimes it is random. More recently, auditors are assigned audits by the Business Intelligence unit (BIQA), who tell them specifically what to check. While there, the auditor is supposed to look for other issues, both income tax and GST.

Usually you would find out you are selected when an auditor calls you. Sometimes they send a letter without calling first. Once you receive the letter, call us. Our initial consultation meeting is free.

“It’s Too Late – They Already Assessed me!”

Auditors are under a lot of pressure to produce. Not just to assess you, but also the other 23 audits they are supposed to perform every year, for an average of 30 years. Mistakes get made. You have 3 months to appeal an audit assessment already made, and in some cases it can be extended to a full year.