If Canadians can’t access their TFSA information on the CRA website, it makes it harder to calculate how much they can add to their account without overcontributing.Justin Tang/The Canadian Press
After a tax season marred by technical troubles, Canadians still can’t access information about their tax-free savings accounts (TFSAs) through the Canada Revenue Agency’s web portals.
Online advisories currently warn both taxpayers accessing their individual online accounts and tax professionals logging in on behalf of their clients that details about their TFSAs, including contribution limits, remain unavailable.
The CRA said the issue is related to delays in processing the TFSA returns that financial institutions submit annually. To avoid displaying incorrect information on its portals, the agency has blocked its TFSA dashboards since April 17, spokesperson Nina Ioussoupova said via e-mail.
“We are currently working to update TFSA information in My Account as soon as possible. We regret the inconvenience and thank taxpayers for their patience,” she said.
The CRA has not responded to a question sent Wednesday evening about about what caused the processing delays.
The unavailability of TFSA information from the CRA can make it harder for Canadians to calculate how much they can add to their TFSA this year without risk of overcontributing, which triggers a steep penalty.
Some tax experts said the TFSA glitch is another technical woe that risks further undermining public confidence in the reliability of the CRA’s website.
A systems update earlier this year resulted in many Canadians not seeing some of their tax slips from their CRA accounts, while some reported seeing duplicate tax slips and receiving incorrect error codes when trying to submit their tax returns electronically.
The CRA’s site currently carries an advisory warning taxpayers that not all their slips may be displayed on their online accounts or be included if they use the auto-fill feature to populate their returns.
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The lack of information about TFSAs on CRA portals is only a minor nuisance for Canadians who regularly add the maximum amount or those who know they have lots of contribution room and have no plans to make big deposits, said Aravind Sithamparapillai, a financial planner at Ironwood Wealth Management Group.
But the issue is likely to be a headache for those who need to verify they have enough room for a one-off large contribution, he added.
Mr. Sithamparapillai often gets questions about available contribution room from clients who have received a bonus or inheritance or those who want to ramp up their savings after graduating from university or coming off parental leave.
The maximum amount Canadians can contribute to their TFSAs depends on an annual dollar limit determined by the government every year, as well as on past deposits and withdrawals. Adding more than what’s allowed to the account attracts a penalty of 1 per cent of the excess contribution per month.
The CRA website typically reports taxpayers’ available contribution room.
Mr. Sithamparapillai cautions that the tax agency’s TFSA information isn’t always up to date and can be incomplete. For example, account activity from the previous calendar year typically doesn’t show in CRA portals until March or April, after the agency has received the information from account issuers and processed it.
And the CRA’s estimate may not account for years in which a taxpayer lived abroad, during which no additional contribution room accrues, he added.
Mr. Sithamparapillai keeps track of each client’s contributions and withdrawals to be able to provide reliable, up-to-date information on contribution room.
But the CRA’s TFSA dashboard allows taxpayers and their advisers to check their own information and calculations.
And the tax agency’s tally is an essential starting point when Mr. Sithamparapillai must calculate the contribution room for new clients. Attempting to do so without referencing the CRA information would require piecing together the individual’s history of activity in the account based on their account statements.
It’s an exercise that can be both labour-intensive and risky because of the chance of missing some information, he said.
In general, the TFSA hitch adds to concerns about the CRA’s website at a time when the agency is pushing to move more of its interaction with taxpayers online, said Joseph Devaney, a director at the financial education platform Video Tax News.
“We have yet another demonstration of glitches in CRA’s system at a point in time when they are trying to force all businesses to use an online-only method of communication with them,” Mr. Devaney said.