Can I ask the CRA to cancel interest after a serious illness?
That is one of the circumstances Form RC4288 is designed for, alongside disaster, delay on the CRA's own part and comparable situations outside the taxpayer's control. What it reaches is the penalties and the interest. The tax itself stays payable. The request is a documented narrative rather than an appeal to sympathy, so the illness has to be tied by dates and evidence to the specific periods when the filing or the payment did not happen. A general account of a difficult few years, with no chronology, is the commonest reason a strong case reads weakly.
Who can file Form RC4288, my accountant or my executor?
The request belongs to the taxpayer whose account carries the penalties and interest, and it is made by them or by someone authorised on that account. For an estate that is normally the person administering it; for a corporation, someone able to act for the company. Sorting out authority on the account before drafting saves a round of correspondence, and it matters more than it sounds, because a request that has to be resubmitted by a different party loses the time it spent waiting, and the look-back limit does not pause while that happens.
Does CRA delay count as a reason for cancelling interest?
It is one of the named circumstances, but naming it is not the same as evidencing it. The request has to show the delay and its effect: what was submitted and when, what the Agency was doing in the intervening period, what the taxpayer could not do while waiting, and what the charges accrued on in the meantime. A file of dated correspondence usually makes that case on its own. An assertion that the CRA was slow, with no chronology attached, gives the reviewer nothing to act on.
How far back can a taxpayer relief request go?
There is a look-back limit, which is why timing is part of the strategy rather than an afterthought. The limit runs by reference to when the request is made, not by reference to when the circumstance arose, so the practical effect is that delay quietly drops the earliest years out of reach even where the circumstances for those years are the strongest. If several years are affected, work out which of them the limit still covers before deciding how wide to draw the request.
Will a relief request reduce the tax I owe as well?
No. The form reaches penalties and interest only, and the tax stays where it is. That has a drafting consequence worth taking seriously: an argument about affordability, or about the tax being unfair, is aimed at something this request cannot deliver, and it dilutes the part of the narrative that can succeed. Keep the request pointed at the charges it can actually reach, and deal with the tax itself through whatever separate arrangement is appropriate to your circumstances.
What evidence do I need to send with a relief request?
Whatever ties the circumstance to the periods in question: dated medical records, correspondence, records of a disaster, the CRA's own letters, proof of when documents were sent. The strength of a request comes from the chronology rather than from the description. Set out what happened, when, what it prevented, and which filing or payment obligation fell in that window. Then show, obligation by obligation, how the penalty or interest being asked about arose out of that period rather than out of ordinary inattention.
How do I report a foreign pension on a US return?
As pension income, gross, with foreign tax available as a credit. Two extra layers catch people out. A treaty position on the pension may need to be taken and disclosed in its own right. And the plan itself can be a reportable foreign financial asset, sometimes with a further reporting regime if it is treated as a foreign trust — obligations keyed to holding the plan, not to drawing from it. Which layers apply depends on the country and the plan type. See the pensions and annuities article.
Is my Indian provident fund or PPF still tax-free now that I live abroad?
The exemption is an Indian one, and it does not travel. Your new country of residence taxes worldwide income under its own rules, and several — the United States in particular — may treat the annual growth in a foreign retirement or savings plan as currently taxable and separately reportable, whether or not you withdrew anything. So an account that is genuinely tax-free in India can be a taxable, reportable asset where you now live. See Indian pensions received abroad.
