Photo Credit: CRA

📒🇨🇦🍁 Businesses, Are You Ready For Your CRA Mail To Go Online? 💵

Tuesday, 19 November 2024 02:30.PM

tarting in spring 2025, the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) will transition to online mail as the default method of delivering most business correspondence. This means you'll start receiving most of your business notices and other correspondence through the CRA's secure online portal, My Business Account, instead of by mail.

This change applies to all:

• new business number and program account registrations
• existing businesses registered for My Business Account
• businesses who have a representative that accesses the CRA's services on their behalf via Represent a Client

This change is part of the CRA's ongoing efforts to improve service delivery by making it faster, easier, and more secure for businesses to manage their tax obligations online. Online mail means businesses will need to sign in to My Business Account to receive correspondence, such as a notice of assessment. For more information you can visit online mail for business.

How to prepare for this change – make sure your email address is in your account and up to date

To prepare for the switch to online mail, the CRA recommends signing into My Business Account and making sure your email address is up to date. This allows the CRA to notify you when important changes are made on your account and when you have mail to view in My Business Account. You can have up to three email addresses on file for each program account, so you can also add your representative, accountant, or other authorized individuals. Without an updated email address, you may miss important notifications about updates and correspondence.

Owners of new businesses should register for My Business Account and provide a valid email address after they register for their business number and program accountss, so they do not miss notifications about updates and correspondence.

Business correspondence

Business correspondence refers to notices, letters, forms, statements, and other documents that the CRA sends to communicate important information about your business tax account or returns.

Businesses registering for a new business number or program account will need to register for My Business Account to access their business correspondence.

With the change to online mail, your business correspondence will be considered as received on the date that it is posted to your My Business Account. To access, view, print, or download your business correspondence, follow the steps below:

Step 1: Sign in to My Business Account (if you are an authorized representative sign into Represent a Client
Step 2: From the navigation menu on the left, go to "Correspondence" heading and select "Mail"
Step 3: Select and review your mail

Exceptions

Existing businesses not registered for My Business Account through the business owner or an authorized representative (via Represent a Client) will continue to receive their CRA correspondence by paper mail.

Charities will continue to receive their CRA correspondence by paper mail unless they sign up to receive online mail.

Non-resident businesses that do not have access to My Business Account through their representative or an owner that is a Canadian resident will continue to receive their correspondence by paper mail.

Benefits of online mail

Our digital services make handling your business tax matters faster and easier. You and your authorized representatives can file, pay, and access detailed information about your tax accounts. Switching to online mail ensures a more efficient, secure, and eco-friendly approach to handling your businesses tax obligations. By using the CRA's digital services, businesses can:

• enable quicker communication with the CRA, making it easier to get updates and support
• receive earlier confirmation for tax information
• manage business taxes quickly and easily from a computer or mobile device
• help reduce paper use, contributing to a cleaner and greener future by cutting down on waste

To learn more about our digital services, check out our tax tip: Looking for the fastest and easiest way to view and manage your business taxes online? Use our digital services!

Improvements to My Business Account's online mail service

My Business Account is a secure online portal that gives you access to a range of services to help manage your business' tax affairs. You can register using a CRA user ID and password or through a sign-in partner. To make managing your business tax correspondence even easier, the CRA has enhanced the "Mail" service in My Business Account with the following new features:

• Improved message filtering and sorting, allowing you to quickly find and organize important correspondence
• A new "Access services" button for easy navigation to other communication services
• A new "Reply" feature for audit enquiries, simplifying the process of responding to the CRA
• A new "Switch business account" button for managing multiple business accounts
• A new "Proceed to pay" button for direct access to the payment process
• A new "Submit document" button for easily submitting required documents

To stay updated on new improvements to My Business Account, please visit: About My Business Account - What's new

Requesting paper mail

If you would like to receive your correspondence by paper mail, you'll need to make a request to activate paper mail. Starting in May 2025, paper mail can be requested in one of two ways:

1. Select paper mail as your delivery method for correspondence in My Business Account
2. Fill out and mail form RC681 – Request to Activate Paper Mail for Business

SOURCE: Canada Revenue Agency

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