Deciphering the Documents:

T1, NOA, T4, SOA

Many people confuse a tax return with a NOA CRA. However, they are not the same.

 

 

A tax return is known as the T1 or T1 General. It is a form you must fill out as a taxpayer and submit to the Canada Revenue Agency.

 

On the other hand, the CRA Notice of Assessment is drafted based on your T1, after which you send the NOA to the CRA as proof of your receipt. The CRA NOA is a summary of your tax returns.

 

t1 vs NOA

T1's vs NOA

 

I know it seems like a lot of documents, but each one has it's own purpose., The notice of assessment shows the the lender that your taxes are current, if you owe anything and a summary of your income. The T1 is a full break-down of your income - this is very important when you have more than 1 source of income as it shows which income came from where. Some incomes are calculated differently from others so seeing the breakdown is very important

See below samples.

 

NOA Notice of assessment
Notice of Assessment
 
You can download a PDF copy your Notice of Assessment from the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) website. Follow these steps:
  1. Sign into your CRA account online
  2. Navigate to the Correspondence menu on the left
  3. Click Mail
  4. Click your most recent Notice of Assessment
  5. Click the PDF button to download your assessment 
T1 General
T1 General    
 
When we request your T1 General we need all 30+ pages - this is very important that we have all the pages so that we have the full breakdown of income
How to find last year’s T1 General form:
  •  contact the accountant/bookkeeper that files the taxes for you and ask for the FULL (ALL SCHEDULES) copy of the most recent 2 years 
  • or use your tax software that you filed the taxes with to download there. . 

 

While we're here - what about T4's?

T4 employer
The T4's directly from the employer (shown above) are always best
 
If you don't have the employer copies of the T4's as shown above and only have the ones from the CRA portal and you have access to a computer, you can save your T4's by pressing "PRT SC" (print screen) on your keyboard and saving the entire page so that it shows your name in the top right corner (rather than using the "print/pdf" button on the page directly as this does NOT show your name on the downloaded file  - example shown below.

 

If you press the Windows key + PrtScr key it saves the screenshot in the Pictures > Screenshots folder.
In many cases, you can also use your phone to take a picture of the WHOLE COMPUTER SCREEN - We NEED the information in the photo below to be visible and in this case, most lenders will allow a photo of the screen as long as it is CLEAR and contains ALL THE INFO BELOW

If you only have access to canada.ca from your phone it will be a bit trickier - please let your broker know if you need someone to walk you through that. 
T4 cra portal

Statement of Account

Sometimes when you do your taxes you will end up owing money. The Statement of Account is a document you can print out from the CRA My Account website. It is a detailed transaction listing showing charges and payments made to/from your CRA account, resulting in your current balance.

Lenders will need your Statement of Account if your Notice of Assessment shows a debit (DR) balance, because this means at the time you filed your taxes you owed additional money to CRA. If you paid your taxes owing after filing, the Statement of Account will show that your taxes are paid and your balance is $0.

 

To print the Statement of Account, follow the steps below (or visit the how to print page for a step-by-step guide):

  1. Login to CRA My Account (now known as canada.ca)

  2. In the Navigation menu, click on the "Mail" option

  3. Click the most recent "Statement of Account"

  4. Click the "PDF" button in the top right side of the document and the file will download

     

SOA Statement of Account CRA