What is the penalty for filing Form RC269 late?
The form goes in with your return, so what is at stake is the late filing penalty on the return itself rather than a separate charge for the schedule. For the 2025 tax year that penalty is 5 per cent of the balance owing, plus 1 per cent of that balance for each full month the return is late, to a maximum of 12 months. Because it is measured against the balance owing, the deduction and the penalty are connected. If the contributions to the overseas scheme qualify and are claimed, the balance the percentage applies to is smaller. That is a reason to settle the qualification question before filing rather than after.
I have no tax owing, does a late return still cost me?
The 2025 penalty is a percentage of the balance owing, so a return with nothing owing gives the percentage nothing to work on. The cost of the delay sits elsewhere. The deduction for contributions to an overseas employer scheme is claimed on a filed return, and until the return is filed the qualification question stays open alongside it. Interest also runs on any balance that does turn out to exist, and interest compounds daily. The honest answer is that a nil year filed late is not expensive in itself, but a year left unfiled because the qualification was never resolved usually becomes something else.
Does the penalty double if I file late two years in a row?
No, and the belief is worth correcting because people plan around it. For the 2025 tax year the higher charge is 10 per cent of the balance owing plus 2 per cent for each full month, to a maximum of 20 months, and it applies where the CRA issued a demand to file and charged a late filing penalty in any of the three preceding tax years. Filing late again is not by itself the trigger. A demand has to have been issued and a penalty actually charged. Nor is it a doubling, because the maximum number of months the higher charge can run for is different too. Before assuming either rate, read the correspondence for a demand and settle whether the overseas scheme qualifies, since that is what decides how large the balance being charged actually is.
How long does the CRA late filing penalty keep accruing?
For the 2025 tax year the ordinary penalty accrues for up to 12 full months, and the higher charge that follows a demand to file for up to 20. After that the penalty is fixed. The penalty does not compound at any stage. Interest does, daily, on whatever balance remains unpaid, and it has no month limit. So on a recently missed year the penalty is the thing to stop by filing. On a year that has been outstanding for a long time the penalty has already reached its limit, and it is the balance that is still costing money.
My overseas plan did not qualify, what does a late filing cost now?
This is the case where the penalty has something to bite on. If the arrangement does not meet the treaty conditions, the contributions are not deductible in Canada, the balance owing on the return is larger than you expected, and the 2025 late filing penalty is a percentage of that larger balance. Interest compounds daily on it as well. The order of work matters here. Establish whether the scheme qualifies, then file, then deal with the balance, rather than holding the filing back while the qualification question is argued. Delay does not improve the qualification answer and it does add to the charge.
Does a late return cover my United States plan contributions too?
Not on this form. Form RC269 deals with contributions to an employer sponsored pension arrangement outside the United States, so contributions to a plan in the United States rest on a separate claim with conditions of its own. The late return covers the year as a whole, and the penalty is charged once on the balance owing for that year rather than once per claim. But the two sets of contributions have to be established separately before the return can be prepared, and each stands on its own documents. Adding the amounts together to save time is how a late filing turns into an adjustment a few months afterwards.
What happens if the two countries disagree about which of them can tax me?
The treaty has a procedure for exactly that. You apply to the competent authority in your residence country, which takes the case up with its counterpart, and the two negotiate a position that removes the double taxation. Some treaties add binding arbitration if they cannot agree. It is slow and it runs on documents, so the practical work is preserving the record and filing protective claims while the clock runs. See our treaty work.
Do NRIs pay tax on money sent to India?
Sending your own funds to India is a transfer of capital, not income, so the remittance itself is not taxed. What is taxable is income the money then earns in India — interest, rent, capital gains — under the rules for the account type it sits in. Sending money out of India is the direction that needs certification before the bank will act. See NRE, NRO and FCNR accounts.
