# Something new at CRA, the Pre-authorized debit.



## pwm

I paid my March installment on Monday, so I went to "My Account" today at CRA to verify that they had my payment. While there, I noticed something new. They now have a pre-authorized debit facility for various forms of payments including quarterly installments. You can setup in advance, a single, or recurring payment on a weekly, monthly, quarterly, or annual basis and CRA will do an auto debit from your chequing account. This has many useful possibilities. For example, if you plan to be away from home when a payment is due, you could setup a one time PAD in advance, or you could do the next 2 payments when you get the installment notice from CRA then you could forget about it until the next notice. You could have a monthly payment go in so that your balance grows slowly over the year instead of large payments every quarter. 
There's lots of possibilities. I was wondering why they didn't have such a thing, and now they do. 

This issue was in my mind after what happened to me last spring. I had a rotten appendix and was in the hospital for 16 days. I knew there was an installment payment due on June 15th while I was in there, and I had to instruct my daughter where to find my Easyweb password so she could signon at my house and make the payment. There's probably many situations when a PAD at CRA could be very useful.


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## pwm

Forgot to include the link: http://www.cra-arc.gc.ca/prthrzddbt-eng.html


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## wendi1

OOO. It's like it was the twenty-first century or something....

Took them long enough to do it.


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## Eclectic12

... never been a fan of PAD as when there are problems - it's a pain to deal with.

Out of curiosity - if you'd already defined CRA as a bill payor, could you not have used the phone system to transfer cash & pay the installment?


Cheers


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## the-royal-mail

I know some people may see benefits for some limited situations but I can assure everyone they are not doing this for our benefit. Signing over direct access to my accounts by the govt/tax man? I don't think so. I don't authorize anyone to go into my accounts and take money like that.


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## Guban

Instalment payments can be made in advance where money is transferred out of your account on a future date. This allows a taxpayer to get the list of instalments from CRA and set them up right away. Never a missed payment, and instead of CRA going into your account, you send to them.


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## OnlyMyOpinion

Notice comes in - online payment goes out (set up with TD like any other bill) - both quarterlies at once. Same with our other bills - email notice comes in - online payment goes out.
We know this is way not kosher since we are not keeping our money till the last possible day, but with int rates near nil (and taxable anyway) we just get the pain out of the way and then don't have to keep track of or setup future payments. Only took one overdue visa bill to realize you don't ever want to pay any of them late :frown:


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## Xoron

Guban said:


> Instalment payments can be made in advance where money is transferred out of your account on a future date. This allows a taxpayer to get the list of instalments from CRA and set them up right away. Never a missed payment, and instead of CRA going into your account, you send to them.


Exactly. Setup the payments for payment a few days before they are due. You can schedule up to a year out at most financial institutions I've dealt with.

I REALLY try and and avoid having anyone dip into my account for bill payments. You hear horror stories about people getting this huge bills with PAD setup. Then having to fight tooth and nail to get it back


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## WillyA

the-royal-mail said:


> I know some people may see benefits for some limited situations but I can assure everyone they are not doing this for our benefit. Signing over direct access to my accounts by the govt/tax man? I don't think so. I don't authorize anyone to go into my accounts and take money like that.


Its not really different from a mortgage or car or student loan payment that people allow to be directly taken from their bank account on a bi-weekly/monthly basis. Ask people who have ever had issues with CRA collections they can access your bank account at that point whether you like it or give permission or not


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## Eclectic12

^^^^

I'm sure they can ... but having an automatic connection can result in things like:
http://www.wfaa.com/news/consumer/a...down-decmial-point-overbilling-206333361.html

[ I'm not finding the Canadian examples I've read about at the moment ... ]

Where one goes into overdraft due to an unauthorized or incorrect billing, one is at the mercy of the billing institution for any NSF charges.

Then too, the billing company can change with billing amount without authorization as long as they send a notice in writing 10 days in advance of the first changed amount debit.


After watching my dad try to block a California internet company from bogus bills and having the CC company start with "call Califorinia" and the move to "sorry, they changed the amount so we couldn't block the charge - do you want the new amount blocked for next month", I'd rather use my bank to pre-program the payments.


Cheers


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## mv222

I recently created an agreement for "Child and family benefits - Amount owing".

I owed $1000, and i wanted to pay it over 10 months.

In "Frequency" i chose "Monthly".

In "Number of payments" i entered "10".

In "Amount" i entered "1000".

After i created the agreement, i was wondering whether i was supposed to enter $1000 or $100 in the "Amount" field. I called them up, and the agent said that i was supposed to enter "100". The reason i put "1000", is because i thought they wanted the total amount that i owed them. They should've explained this a little better on their site! Just thought i'd post this, so someone else doesn't make the same mistake.

The bank account transaction description will show the withdrawal as "CANADA TXD".


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## ian

We like the convenience.

We have also changed our CRA accounts from snail mail to email. We try to minimize the amount of hard mail that we get, most especially now that we have moved to an area that has community mail boxes.


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## OhGreatGuru

I'm with the others who see no reason to give CRA access to my accounts. It's very easy to set up post-dated payments to CRA on any on-line banking service.

If I were living outside the country for extended periods of time, I might reconsider, as I might not be at home when the instalment reminders come. OTOH if I was away for long periods I would probably make sure I had regular computer access, and get the notices by email.


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## kcowan

I get their expected payments from MyAccount, and schedule them as bill payments way ahead.


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