Catch-up
You owe years of HST and you are afraid to call CRA. What now?
2026-11-03 · 6 min read · Tax Everyday, Vaughan
Fear is a reason the years pile up. It is a poor filing strategy. If CRA has not contacted you about the unremitted HST, a phone call that describes the debt can close the door on a voluntary disclosure for that issue. Disclosure is only available when it is voluntary, complete, a penalty would otherwise apply, and the tax is paid or a payment arrangement is in place. CRA does not have to accept it. Do not treat it as a pardon.
If CRA has already written, called, or assessed those periods, the disclosure is generally no longer voluntary. The useful move is then to file the real returns, replace any estimate, and deal with a number you can actually pay. Interest keeps compounding until the balance is paid. A payment arrangement is not forgiveness.
Put the years on paper before anyone calls
Pull each reporting period you were registered for, or should have been. For each period write taxable sales, HST collected, and HST paid on business expenses you can still prove. The net of those three numbers is the conversation. A feeling that it is “around twenty thousand” is not a return.
- Registered and silent: file every missing GST/HST return, even the nil ones.
- Never registered, but you crossed the small-supplier threshold: registration can be backdated. The tax may be owing on sales you never charged it on.
- Collected and spent: the trust amount is still owing. Cash flow is a payment problem, not a filing problem.
- Afraid of the total: the total only gets larger while the returns sit unfiled.
What we need in week one
Sales summaries or invoices, HST numbers if you have one, and the expense accounts. Tax Everyday quotes HST catch-up after seeing how many periods and how complete the records are. A single ready corporate year, including HST support, is the $2,000 plus HST package. A sole proprietor’s ready year, personal return included, is $650 plus HST. A pile of unsorted years is not forced into those prices.
Book a time or use the file drop. You do not have to narrate the story on a CRA phone line to get the work started.
Short answers
Will CRA freeze my account if I file?+
Filing does not promise that an account stays open, and it does not promise the opposite. CRA can issue a requirement to pay, which is a garnish, when a balance is unpaid. A payment arrangement is more realistic once the returns exist and you keep filing current periods.
Should I pay a lump sum before the returns are done?+
A payment reduces interest. It does not replace the returns. If a disclosure is still possible, the way the payment is made matters. Ask before you send a cheque with a confession written on the memo line.
Want this applied to your file?
These notes are general. A return is prepared only after we see your slips.