The Voluntary Disclosures Program (VDP) grants relief to taxpayers who voluntarily come forward to fix errors or omissions in their GST/HST filings before the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) knows or contacts them about it.
If the applicant satisfies the threshold conditions for the application, the CRA may accept the application and provide relief under any of the following three relief programs:
a. General Program
b. Limited Program
c. Wash transactions category
Depending upon the category in which the application is accepted, the relief may consist of 100% penalty and partial/whole arrears interest waiver along with waiver from prosecution.
Incomplete applications are not considered, thus, it is critical that all the conditions are satisfied prior to filing the application.
Estimated tax and interest is required to be remitted along with the application.
In addition to the VDP for GST/HST discussed above, there are different rules for VDP in British Columbia, Manitoba and Saskatchewan PST as well as for Quebec QST.
For additional information on the CRAs VDP program, please refer the link below:
If you have identified or believe there has been a non-compliance in Canada, please reach out to us for a free 30-minute chat to discuss your options.