Catch-up
How do you file five years of personal taxes in Ontario?
2026-11-02 · 7 min read · Tax Everyday, Vaughan
Five missing Ontario T1s are filed as five returns, not one combined form. Start by naming the years. If today is late 2026 and you last filed 2020, the open years are 2021 through 2025. Refunds are the urgent split: a 2023 refund is still claimable until 31 December 2026, while a 2021 or 2022 refund is generally outside the three-year rule. Tax owing on any of those years can still be assessed, with penalty and interest if the return was late and a balance was due.
You do not need every slip in a perfect folder before someone can tell you the order of work. You do need enough to stop guessing. CRA My Account, if you can get in, lists many T4s, T4As, and T5s the payer already filed. A Represent a Client authorization lets a firm pull the same slips.
Work the years in an order that protects money
Build a one-page index before anyone starts keying. Column one is the year. Column two is refund, owing, or unknown. Column three is the slips you have.
- File refund years that are still inside the three-year window first if the slips are ready. In November 2026 that means 2023, 2024, and 2025.
- File owing years next, because penalty and interest are already running. The personal late-filing penalty is 5% plus 1% a month, max 12 months, when tax is owing.
- Older owing years still get filed. Older refund years get filed too, but do not expect CRA to mail that refund.
- Married or common-law: your spouse’s net income is on your return. If they are also behind, the two files move together.
- Ontario credits such as the Trillium benefit need the provincial part of the T1. Skipping Ontario does not make it a federal-only year.
What a five-year file costs here
A straightforward personal year — T4s, a few slips, standard credits — is $90 plus HST at Tax Everyday. Five straightforward years are five of those, and we confirm that before filing. The moment a year has a business, a rental, or a year of missing slips that have to be rebuilt, it is quoted. Self-employed years that are ready are $650 plus HST each.
Use the personal tax form if the years are simple and you can upload documents. Use the file drop if the years are messy. Book a time if you want the index built with you. The phone is (905) 499-2964.
Short answers
Do I file 2021 before 2025?+
CRA can process a later year while an earlier year is missing, but benefits, marital credits, and carry-forward amounts behave better when the chain is complete. We usually prepare the chain, then file in an order that saves any refund still inside the deadline.
Can I e-file a year that old?+
Some older years cannot be e-filed and have to be paper-filed or specially transmitted. That is a processing detail. It is not a reason to skip the year.
Want this applied to your file?
These notes are general. A return is prepared only after we see your slips.