We wrote a letter to the CRA about T183 forms
Update April 5, 2023
CRA has committed to pursuing ability to recognize a T183 form that is electronically signed(For individuals and corporations). The changes would mean amendments to Subsection 150.1(4) of the Income Tax Act to be added to Schedule 2 of the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act. This is a major win in our advocacy efforts!
Update March 4, 2020
We wrote a letter to CRA about signatures of T183 and T183CORP forms. You probably don’t pay close attention to the latest news and requests for feedback from Canada Revenue Agency. Who gets excited about tax forms?
Well, we do. That’s why when CRA recently asked Canadians if they should accept electronic signatures on a couple of forms, we decided to respond. I blocked off some time during my day (during tax season too!), got a cup of coffee, and gave my two cents on the two forms. I did this because I think it’s important for Canadians in general and for our clients. And if we didn’t respond, who would?
The two forms in question are the ones that accountants like us ask clients like you to sign to allow personal and corporate tax returns to be filed electronically.
We’re particularly connected to this issue because we are an entirely remote, cloud-based accounting firm serving hundreds of clients and employing eight full-time accountants. Our goal is to make it easy for our clients to file their taxes and manage their accounting from anywhere they choose. Our clients provide us with all their information electronically, so they don’t need to print things and drop them off to us. We try to be as paperless as possible.
That puts Zenbooks at the forefront of an industry that has been incredibly slow to change. But we’re determined to continue to fighting to make accounting as efficient and accessible as possible.
I thought about sending my response by good-old-fashioned mail. But then I would have had to buy stamps. So I actually sent it in by fax. I don’t even have a fax machine, but I used an email-to-fax service.
I’m not even sure I’ll get a response to my letter or whether it will go into a black hole at CRA. But I’m still glad I wrote it. And the CRA is apparently trying harder to listen to the public; they now have a Chief Service Office and they also opened a program to receive this type of feedback. They’ve actually made a number of improvements over the last couple of years to their online presence and portal.
(If you don’t have a online account, you should definitely sign up here)
We believe for Canada to be successful, Canadian employees and business owners should have the flexibility to work from home or from wherever life and business take them. Taxpayers should have access to their information, and be able to file their returns and other paperwork, from anywhere that is convenient for them.
Requiring our clients to physically sign documents creates an unnecessary burden for them. Travelling to an accounting office to sign a simple form costs them time and money, and it’s also bad for the environment.
So we believe electronic signatures are the way to go. Here’s the letter we sent to CRA on March 4.
Maybe one day we will achieve the goal in our company slogan: No more paper cuts.
Eric Saumure, CPA, CA, is co-founder and Principal of Zenbooks, an online cloud-native accounting firm started in 2015 to serve 300+ Canadian small and mid-sized businesses. Before Zenbooks, Eric spent 3 years at KPMG. He specializes in financial strategy for growth-stage companies in the $1M-$10M revenue range, with a particular focus on marketing and creative agencies, SaaS, and professional services firms, e-commerce and non-profits.
Eric's commentary on Canadian small business, tax policy, and open banking has appeared in the Toronto Star, Canadian Press, CTV, CBC, Le Devoir, Policy Options, The Conversation, and Canadian Accountant. He was named to the OBJ Ottawa Forty Under 40 and recognized on both the Financial Times Americas' Fastest Growing Companies 2026 list and the Globe and Mail's Report on Business Top Growing Companies 2024. He is the principal researcher behind the Zenbooks Technology in Accounting Study, a national survey of 500 Canadian SMEs on accounting technology adoption, and the founder of OpenSME, a Canadian open banking advocacy organization. He serves on the board of Cystic Fibrosis Canada and member of the Montfort Hospital Association.
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