Electronic Filing and Provision of Information (GST/HST) Regulations

A large registered business with a monthly reporting period acquires a specified property or service in Ontario in January of Year 1, is charged 13% HST, but does not claim the input tax credit until its return for January of Year 2, in which it also reports the corresponding recaptured input tax credit. Will CRA assess a penalty for failure to report the RITC in the January of Year 1 return? CRA responded:

[U]nder paragraph 30(1)(d) of the NHVATS No. 2 Regulations, the large business would have been required to report the RITC no later than the reporting period following the reporting period that the tax became payable… or… was paid… . Since the RITC was not reported until the filing of the GST/HST return for the reporting period of January Year 2, the large business would be liable to a penalty under section 284.01 and as determined under section 7 of the Electronic Filing and Provision of Information (GST/HST) Regulations, equal to 10% of the unreported RITC amount.

Will CRA assess penalties under s. 284.01 where a large business inadvertently reports the wrong province to which a recaptured input tax credit relates (e.g., Ontario rather than B.C.), but this error does not result in an increase to the net input tax credits that should be reported? After referencing the Electronic Filing and Provision of Information (GST/HST) Regulations, CRA responded:

[A]n over-reported RITC amount has been reported for Ontario, and no RITC amount has been reported for British Columbia. As the penalty calculations in section 7 of the Regulations are based on the difference between the RITCs that should have been reported for each particular province in a specified return for a reporting period and the RITCs that were actually reported, or un-reported, for that particular province in that return, the over-reported amount of RITCs for Ontario would result in a negative penalty calculation… that…[p]ursuant to section 125… is deemed to be nil. … However, the un-reported amount of RITCs for British Columbia would result in a penalty amount equal to a minimum of 5%, to a maximum of 10%, of that un-reported amount, where the amount remains unreported for 5 complete months or more.