Catch-up
A corporation has unfiled HST returns. What is a GST34, and who files it?
2026-10-02 · 6 min read · Tax Everyday, Vaughan
The GST34 is the return itself: the form, or the electronic equivalent, on which a registrant reports HST collected and input tax credits for one reporting period. Corporations do not get a different tax. They get the same return, filed under the corporation’s business number and RT account. If that account is open, every period needs a return, including periods with zero sales. Unfiled GST34s are what prompt arbitrary assessments that use your past sales and no input tax credits.
The person who clicks “file” has to be authorized. A director is responsible for seeing that it happens. If net tax was collected and not remitted, that director can be personally assessed. Catching up the T2s and leaving the RT account silent is an unfinished job. CRA’s collections officers do not treat those as one balance, and neither should you.
Get the RT account’s history before you prepare a year
My Business Account shows the periods CRA thinks are outstanding. That list beats a memory of “we were annual.”
- Confirm frequency: monthly, quarterly, or annual. The GST34 follows that, not the T2 year, unless you happen to be an annual filer.
- Match each outstanding period to sales and to HST on purchases.
- Nil periods: file them. They are short. They stop the notices.
- A period CRA already assessed arbitrarily: file the real return so the credits can go in.
- Close the RT account only after the last return, and only if the company has truly stopped making taxable supplies.
HST support inside a ready corporate year
When the year is ready, Tax Everyday’s corporate package is $2,000 plus HST and includes HST support for that year. A company with three years of monthly GST34s unfiled is not a single ready year. We quote the periods. Bring a screenshot or a PDF of the outstanding-returns list from My Business Account. That one page scopes the work better than a description.
Short answers
The person who used to file these left. We thought the returns were still going in.+
Log in and look. If the periods are listed as outstanding, they are not filed, regardless of what anyone intended. The fix is the returns, not a search for the old email thread.
Can the shareholder file the GST34 on a personal HST number?+
No. The corporation’s taxable supplies belong on the corporation’s RT account. A personal registration is a different person. Mixing them creates two wrong accounts.
Want this applied to your file?
These notes are general. A return is prepared only after we see your slips.