A recent Tax Court of Canada (“TCC”) case highlights the harsh consequences of failing to monitor an online Canada Revenue Agency (“CRA”) portal, like MyCRA or My Business Account. In Web Listings Inc. v. His Majesty the King, 2026 TCC 101 (“Web Listings”), the TCC confirmed that if a business’s authorized representative receives online portal notifications and ignores them, the tax consequences for the business are severe.
Most Canadian businesses assume that once an employee or professional advisor has been authorized to deal with the Canada Revenue Agency (“CRA”), that individual has the immediate ability to access and update all of the business’s online CRA information. As the CRA recently confirmed at an industry roundtable, that assumption is incorrect, with different authorization levels permitting different activities and access to one CRA Account not necessarily providing access to others.
As of May 2025, the Canada Revenue Agency (the “CRA”) has begun implementing a significant change in how it communicates with businesses. Online mail is now the default method for delivering most CRA correspondence through the My Business Account portal.
This transition affects both new and existing businesses and is part of the CRA’s ongoing movement towards online services – for better or for worse. Our report on what businesses really need to know about these changes is set out below.
Over the past several years, the Canada Revenue Agency (the “CRA”) has been in the midst of a digital service transformation. Like the CBSA’s “CARM” project, which we previously discussed here, this initiative appears to be a response to the Canadian government’s “digital first” policy, which aims to build digital delivery into government operations and services.
While the CRA now provides Notices of Assessment electronically through online portals including “My Account” and “My Business Account”, access to such documents remains difficult for many, especially non-Canadian residents who may be unfamiliar with the Canadian tax system.
