CRA Voluntary Disclosures Program — offshore and unreported income: do I need an adviser, or can I do it alone?
Some of it, yes — and we will say so on the call if that is the honest answer. The parts that are worth paying for are the ones where a missed election, a missed deadline or an unverified threshold costs more than the fee: the general tier gives penalty relief and partial interest relief; the limited tier gives less where the conduct was more culpable.
What if I have already filed and got it wrong?
That is a common starting point. We re-derive the position, identify whether an amendment or a disclosure route is the right vehicle, and tell you which one preserves the relief that is still available. The order matters more than the speed.
How long will it take?
It depends on the documents rather than on us. Once the pack is complete most filings turn around inside a fortnight; anything that needs a certificate from a tax authority runs on that authority's timetable, which we tell you at the start rather than at the end.
When does a voluntary disclosure stop being voluntary?
Relief under the programme is available only while the disclosure is still voluntary, and that window closes when the CRA begins to act on the same matter. Enforcement action, a request for records, or an enquiry touching the years you meant to correct can all end it. This is why the first step is a review of everything the CRA has already sent you, before a word of the application is drafted. If correspondence has arrived, the question is whether it concerns the same obligation and the same years, not whether it mentioned a penalty.
Which tier of the CRA disclosure programme will apply to me?
There are two. The general tier gives penalty relief and partial interest relief. The limited tier gives less, and it is where a disclosure lands when the conduct behind the failure was more culpable. What decides the tier is how the failure came about: whether the omission was an oversight, whether advice was taken and what that advice said, whether the accounts were deliberately kept out of view. The amount owing does not decide it. So the application is written around the history of the failure, and the documents are assembled to evidence that history rather than to argue it.
Does a small amount of unreported income keep me in the general tier?
No. The size of the balance is not the test. Modest interest left off for several years can sit in either tier depending entirely on how it came to be left off. Filers are surprised by this in both directions: a large omission that arose from an adviser's error and a small one that was deliberate are read on their conduct, not their arithmetic. Set out the sequence of events plainly when you first take advice, including the parts that do not flatter you. That sequence is the substance of the application, and it is the part that cannot be repaired later.
Is the IRS offshore disclosure programme the same as the CRA's?
No. They are separate programmes, run by separate authorities, with their own terms and their own view of what counts as voluntary. A person with obligations on both sides of the border can need a correction in each, and relief granted by one says nothing about the other. Sequencing matters as well, because the position taken in one filing becomes part of a record the other authority may eventually see. Where both are in play, the two corrections are planned together and the facts stated in each are checked against the other before either is lodged.
Will a disclosure cancel the interest as well as the penalties?
Not entirely. The general tier carries penalty relief and partial interest relief; the limited tier carries less than that. A successful disclosure therefore changes what is added to the balance rather than the balance itself, because the tax that should have been paid for those years remains payable. Budgeting for that from the outset avoids the common shock of an application succeeding and a bill arriving anyway. Where paying the assessed amount is itself the difficulty, that is a conversation to have while the disclosure is being prepared, not after the reassessments land.
Can I still apply after the CRA has written to me?
It depends on what the letter is about. Voluntariness ends when the CRA begins to act on the matter you want to correct, so a letter about those years and that obligation is usually fatal to an application. A letter about something unrelated may not be. The distinction is narrow, so it is worth having someone read the actual correspondence rather than a description of it from memory. If the route has closed, there are other ways to bring the years up to date, and the answer changes what gets filed first and how the covering material is written.
Is this the same thing as the IRS offshore voluntary disclosure program?
No, and the American programme people are usually thinking of no longer exists — the IRS closed its offshore voluntary disclosure program in 2018. What remains on the US side are the streamlined procedures for non-wilful failures, which we handle separately. This page is the CRA's own Voluntary Disclosures Program: a Canadian route for unreported income and unreported offshore holdings, with relief that depends on the disclosure being genuinely voluntary and complete.
What is the difference between FBAR and Form 8938?
They overlap but are not the same report. The FBAR goes to FinCEN and covers foreign financial *accounts*; Form 8938 goes to the IRS with the return and covers a wider class of specified foreign financial *assets*, with thresholds that vary by filing status and whether you live abroad. Many people must file both for the same accounts, and satisfying one does nothing for the other. See filing both.
