Mortgage broker tax filings that land on the number the CRA already has.

February tells the CRA first

Every brokerage you worked under files a T4A by the end of February, reporting your self-employed commissions in box 020. The CRA's matching program compares those slips to the commission income on your return, by SIN, automatically. A mortgage agent's filing therefore starts from the slips, not from deposits or memory, and every difference needs a reason it can survive a letter.

Legitimate differences exist. A deal funded in late December may be paid and reported in different years; desk and file fees deducted on statements are expenses, not missing income; a mid-year brokerage switch produces two slips that overlap untidily. We reconcile the commission line to the slips before filing, because a shortfall the CRA finds first arrives as a review, not a question.

Instalments: last year's boom bills this year's bust

Owe more than $3,000 at filing, this year and in either of the two years before, and the CRA expects quarterly instalments on March, June, September and December 15. Its reminder notices are computed from your strongest recent year, which is precisely wrong for a commission business: a boom year sets instalment demands that come due in the slowdown that follows it.

You are allowed to pay on a current-year estimate instead. Done carefully, that frees real cash in a down year with no interest cost; done casually, it earns instalment interest and, at the extreme, a penalty. We reset the estimate each quarter from your funded pipeline rather than from last spring's optimism, and we tell you the number to put aside from every cheque.

Deduction lines particular to the licence

• FSRA licensing fees and the E&O premium your brokerage passes down: costs of holding the licence, fully deductible.
• Continuing education: the courses your licence class requires, and the broker-level courses that expand what you can arrange.
• Referral fees paid: deductible when the agreement and disclosure sit on the deal file, and hard to defend when they were e-transfers with no paper.
• Leads and marketing: rate-site placements, ad platforms and CRM costs, claimed at their HST-included price because an exempt business recovers no ITCs.
• Home office and vehicle: normal proration rules, a kilometre log behind the vehicle claim, and meals with referral partners at 50%.

One more line surprises first-year agents: self-employed brokers pay both halves of CPP through Schedule 8 with the T1, and that balance often stings more than the income tax itself. It is part of the number we tell you to reserve.

The HST return you usually don't file, and when that flips

Arranging mortgages is exempt, and exempt supplies never count toward the $30,000 small-supplier threshold, so most agents never register for GST/HST and never file that return. The flip happens at the edges. A flat fee for passing a name along, paid teaching or speaking, or running lead generation for other brokers can be taxable supplies, and once those cross $30,000 over four rolling quarters you must register and charge 13% on that side alone.

The Excise Tax Act draws the line between arranging a mortgage and merely promoting one more narrowly than most agents assume. If side income is becoming a real stream, it deserves a professional read before the CRA supplies one.

One filing calendar, matched to how agents earn

Our Corporate Tax Filing service carries brokerage corporations through the T2 year, and Personal Tax Filing handles the T2125 world most agents live in. If a matching letter or processing review does arrive, CRA Audit & Review Support answers it with the statement trail already assembled, which is normally what ends it.