I even declared the pennies on my eyes

March 13, 2016 12:43 AM

This year for the first time ever my tax return is $0, though last year under very similar circumstances I got almost $1000 back. I'm well below the poverty line. Is there some way for me to get someone to check over my tax return for free?

Additional details:

- I live in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, so this is Canadian tax we're talking about here.
- I made a little over $13K in 2015 in freelance and rental income and have lots of deductions. I also pay thousands of dollars in property tax on the Toronto house I own.
- In 2014 I made a little over $12K, so slightly less money, but I also had much less in deductions last year, and I got nearly $1000 back. It makes no sense to me that there could be such a difference from one year to the next. This is also the first time ever I have not gotten any return whatsoever. In 2013 I made about 20K in freelance and rental income and still got a few hundred dollars back.
- I'm using UFile.ca, which is free for people who make less than 15K. I have contacted them and asked them to review my file, but they say they don't provide that kind of service, though they will answer specific questions.

Is there something I could do to get my tax return checked by someone knowledgeable for free? Should I just accept that the UFile program is accurate (as it always has been before), that I am probably out of luck this year, and submit the return as is, leaving it up to the CRA to adjust it if it needs adjusting?

posted by anonymous to Work & Money (11 answers total)

Would you consider redoing your taxes by hand? Like, on paper with a calculator. I have done it before (both US and Canadian taxes) and it's not as hard as people make it out to be. You are more likely to make a math error, but in this case you're just running a secondary check.
posted by serelliya at 1:31 AM on March 13, 2016

I've found discrepancies before by comparing my entries in the previous year's forms with the entries in the current ones. The software I use has that feature built-in, but you could also do it by comparing printouts or PDFs of the returns.
posted by davcoo at 3:02 AM on March 13, 2016 [5 favorites]

Toronto has volunteer tax clinics around this time of year where you can have a trained volunteer help you prepare and check your return for free.
CVITP
Consider bringing all of your receipts and documents you used to prepare your copy and have them prepare one to see if their return matches yours.
posted by Karaage at 3:53 AM on March 13, 2016

I do note that they don't do returns if you have rental income and or self employment income, which looks like all of your income - I would still contact them to see of they have any advice for additional resources.
posted by Karaage at 4:02 AM on March 13, 2016

Did it come out to literally, exactly zero? I'm in the US but here that would suggest an input or calculation error of some sort: it might be close to nothing but to have paid exactly what you needed to, no more and no less, would be very surprising. If that's what you're seeing I would guess that somehow your fields didn't populate right and you should do it again before you do anything else.
posted by gerryblog at 6:27 AM on March 13, 2016 [4 favorites]

Definitely check your pdf's from the last two years against and see if you're not inputting something this year if you haven't already, it sounds like you're missing a line somewhere.

I use simpletax.ca (which is by donation and thus can be free if needed), you could try making an account with their service and see if you get a different result - their program works exactly like ufile (which I think I've used in the past) and is very user friendly.
posted by lafemma at 6:34 AM on March 13, 2016

I'm a licensed CPA in Canada. I'd be happy to look at your two returns see if there's an error with the current year return or at least explain the difference from the previous year. Feel free to Memail me if you're interested.
posted by bkpiano at 7:31 AM on March 13, 2016 [23 favorites]

I don't know about Canada, but when my daughter was getting her degree in accounting, part of the requirements was to volunteer to do tax returns at no charge, through the auspices (and under the supervision of) the accounting department. So, you might want to check with a local university or college and see if they have a similar service.
posted by Thorzdad at 8:15 AM on March 13, 2016 [1 favorite]

'Murican over here, so take what I say with a grain of salt. What do you mean by "my tax return is $0"? Do you mean that you didn't get a refund? If so, that just means that the tax you owed was equal to the amount you paid through your withholdings. So it's possible that you just correctly withheld the right amount this year. Did you use some new software to handle your freelance income this year or something similar that might have changed your withholdings?
posted by deathpanels at 10:02 AM on March 13, 2016

Looks like bkpiano solved your problem but FYI StudioTax is free and I have found it to be dead on for my (relatively simple) returns.
posted by raider at 10:29 AM on March 13, 2016

I found this tool useful: https://sherpa.tax/beta/form.php it's a way to check that you're receiving all the benefits you're entitled to.
posted by lizifer at 2:01 PM on March 13, 2016