by Tom Sasvari
BARRIE ISLAND—A US resident who has had a cottage on Barrie Island for many years has some good news for US and Canadian residents regarding the Underused Housing Tax Act (UHTA) and the penalties and interest related to this.
“It is good news and will help take some of the pressure off people,” stated Richard Butela, a US resident. “A friend of mine talked to a member of parliament in his area and got a response that there is going to be some relief on the deadline for (UHT) to be filed and the penalties for filing late.”
“I want to inform you that Minister Diane Lebouthillier (National Revenue of Canada) has decided to offer transitional relief for the Underused Housing Tax. This relief will waive penalties and interest for a six-month period until November 1, 2023, although the filing date remains the same,” said Brian Masse MP for Windsor West, in a letter to one of Mr. Butela’s friends, who also owns a cottage in Canada.
The Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) announced in a release March 27 that it, “understands that there are unique challenges for affected owners in the first year of the Underused Housing Tax Act (UHTA) administration. To provide more time for affected owners to take necessary actions to comply, the Minister of National Revenue is providing transitional relief to affected owners. The application of penalties and interest under the UHTA for the 2022 calendar year will be waived for any late-filed underused housing tax (UHT) return and for any late-paid UHT payable, provided the return is filed or the UHT is paid by October 31, 2023.”
“This transitional relief means that although the deadline for filing the UHT return and paying the UHT payable is still April 30, 2023, no penalties or interest will be applied for UHT returns and payments that CRA receives before November 1, 2023,” the CRA release explains.
As was reported in last week’s edition of the Expositor, “Canada has a new one percent annual UHT on the ownership of vacant or underused housing in Canada. The tax usually applies to non-resident, non-Canadian owners. In some situations, however, it also applies to Canadian individuals and corporations. If you’re an affected owner of residential property in Canada, you must file a return for the UHT return by April 30, 2023, for each property you owned on December 31, 2022. To determine if the underused housing tax applies to you, please visit Canada.ca/cra-uht. For more technical information, visit our UHT notices page,” the CRA notes.
On the topic of vacation property exemptions, “the CRA has developed an online vacation property designation tool that will hep you determine if your property is located in an eligible area for purposes of the vacation property exemption. In rare situations, this tool will be unable to determine whether your property is located in an eligible area. In such situations, you will have to conduct a visual inspection of the Statistics Canada’s GeoSearch map.
As of March 14, 2023, UHT returns can be filed in My Account and My Business Account.
If you are not registered for the CRA’s online portals, you can also file your UHT return electronically. If you file your UHT return electronically through this webform, you will need: a valid CRA tax identifier number, social insurance number, individual tax number or business number and a digital access code (DAC). If assistance is needed in obtaining a DAC, you can call the UHT filing help desk toll free at 1-800-387-0720, or call collect at 613-221-3224.
