The CRA has approximately $1.4 billion in refund and benefit cheques waiting for taxpayers to claim.
The Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) currently has a significant backlog of uncashed cheques, waiting for taxpayers to deposit into their accounts. In 2020, the CRA introduced an online feature through their My Account portal where taxpayers can determine if they have an uncashed cheque from as far back as 1998. Over the next year, the CRA plans to send 75,000 emails to certain individuals who have not cashed certain benefit cheques, but most taxpayers will need to access their CRA My Account portal to determine if they have a cheque waiting to be cashed.
After logging on to the CRA My Account Portal, taxpayers can scroll to the “Related Services” list and then click on the link at the bottom of the list, “Uncashed cheques.” This page will either list the uncashed cheques (six months or older) available to cash, or state “You have no uncashed cheques from the Canada Revenue Agency.”
In addition to the 75,000 emails, the CRA is executing a communication strategy around these uncashed cheques. Whenever there are periods of high CRA communications, there is also an increase in fraudulent communications claiming to come from the CRA. Please be vigilant, scrutinize any information claiming to be from the CRA, and know how to spot a fraudulent communication. Please log on to your CRA My Account portal to see if you have an uncashed cheque waiting for you and if you have any other tax or corporate accounting questions, please reach out to a Bateman MacKay Business Advisor.
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