Authorizing A Tax Representative

We serve many of our clients in various tax roles, such as with audit representation, government filings or HST requirements. The following information comes from this Government of Canada / Canada Revenue Agency webpage and is an excellent resource for business owners to know what their responsibilities are regarding authorizing a tax representative:

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You are responsible for providing your tax information to your representative. They will need to have things like the following:

• your name, address, date of birth

• your social insurance number

• your business number

• your non-resident withholding tax account number

• the trust account number

• your notice of assessment or notice of reassessment

• your tax return

• other tax documents

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When you authorize a representative, you are letting that person represent you for your personal tax, business tax, non-resident tax or trust tax matters.

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Personal tax matters include topics related to information on your taxpayer account.

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Business tax matters include topics related to information on your program accounts. If you want to authorize a representative for your Canadian business, you will first need a business number. To find out if you need a business number, go to When you need a business number or Canada Revenue Agency program accounts.

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Non-resident tax matters include topics related to your non-resident withholding tax accounts. These accounts have account numbers beginning with the letters NR.

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Trust tax matters include topics related to trust tax accounts. These accounts have account numbers beginning with the letter T.

 

You are responsible for choosing how much and what type of access your representative gets. You may also choose how long they may have access to your information. Your representative's authorization stays in effect until one of the following events:

• you or your representative cancel it

• it reaches the expiry date you choose

• it is cancelled by an executor after your death

 

Additionally, we cancel the authorization for some legal representatives on your account when we become aware of your death.

If your representative contacts us, we will ask them questions to confirm their identity and verify that they are listed as your representative on your account.

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There are exceptions for authorizing a representative for:

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Executors

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If a sole proprietor is deceased, the executor has the same rights and privileges as the business owner and can communicate with the CRA on behalf of the deceased if we receive a copy of the death certificate and one of the following:

• a copy of the deceased person's last will and testament

• other documents identifying who the legal representative is

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Executors are responsible for managing authorizations on your tax accounts after your death including removing existing authorizations. For more information on how to remove authorizations, go to Cancel authorization for a representative.

For more information about executors, see Legal representative.

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Trustees or receivers

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If we receive court issued documents that appoint trustees or receivers, we will automatically consider them a legal representative.

Online access is currently not available for trust accounts. To authorize a representative on a trust account, fill in Form AUT-01, Authorize a Representative for Offline Access.

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Information source: https://www.canada.ca/en/revenue-agency/services/tax/representative-authorization/before.html 

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