The tax filing deadline is fast approaching. Have you filed your taxes yet? Unless you enjoy paying penalties and interest to the taxman (I have yet to meet someone who does), it’s best interest to file your taxes by April 30^th.

Filing your taxes on time is important, especially when you’re a homeowner. The Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) now requires you to report the sale of your principal residence on your tax return. Failure to do so could result in a hefty tax bill. Don’t let this simple, yet costly mistake happen to you!

For filing your taxes you have a couple choices. You can do it yourself or hire an accountant. If your tax return is pretty straightforward, you should have no problem filing your own taxes.

When it comes to tax filing software, there are plenty of programs to choose from, so when Nimalan Balachandran reached out to me about his new tax filing software CloudTax, my first question was, why?

Nimalan soon put those concerns to rest. He explained that he wanted to create income tax software that’s easy for Canadian non-business taxpayers with minimal knowledge in tax preparation, to file their own tax return at no cost. But that’s easier said than done.

Nimalan has spent years perfecting his income tax software. It was only earlier this month that all his efforts paid off when his income tax software was NETFILE certified. To be frank, I’d never met someone so passionate about tax, so I thought I’d give CloudTax a shot.

Filing Your Own Taxes the First Time

If you’ve never filed your own taxes, I’m not going to lie. It can be a little intimating at first. But similar to learning to ride a bike or swim, filing your own taxes is an empowering experience. Not only can you save yourself money, you’ll gain a better understanding of the Canadian tax system. You’ll start understanding the difference between tax specific terms like total income, net income and taxable income and tax credits versus tax deductions.

By gaining a better understanding of our tax system, it will allow you to make smarter tax decisions throughout the year. That’s the way I felt when I filed my own taxes the first and that’s the way you’re likely to feel as well. Now onto the fun part, filing your own taxes…

Filing Your Taxes with CloudTax

CloudTax is a web and mobile friendly income tax filing platform. The good news is you won’t need to download any software to use CloudTax. You can do your taxes straight from mobile phone if you like.

The first thing I noticed when I signed onto CloudTax the first time was its user-friendly interface. CloudTax is a professionally designed program and it shows. The visually appealing interface will almost make filing your taxes fun!

After entering your first name and email address to register for CloudTax, you’re taken straight to its easy-to-use tax wizard. You’ll start off by creating your very own tax profile.

CloudTax is broken down into smaller steps, so you don’t feel intimated. Choose the career paths that best describe you: student, employed, self-employed, senior, unemployed and rental income. For anything that requires a little more explanation, there’s an “information box” with more information. And unlike some tax software that hides the tax refund, you can clearly see your tax refund at the top left corner of the screen throughout the tax filing process.

If you’re filing your taxes the first time, it’s only natural that you might have a question or two. Unlike other free tax software that offers little to no customer service or charges extra, CloudTax is there to help you. There’s a chat window at the bottom right-hand corner where you can ask any tax filing questions that may come to mind.

But that’s not all. CloudTax taxes it a step further by offering video tutorials on filling your own taxes as well as providing answers to common tax-related questions.

Once you’ve filled in your personal information, you’ll choose the tax slips that apply to you. Thankfully CloudTax supports “auto-fill my return.” This helps you save time by pulling your tax slip information directly from the CRA website.

Once you make it to the end of the tax filing process, CloudTax has a sophisticated error checking tool. You can also review your tax return and save it as a PDF before filing it online via NETFILE.

The Bottom Line

If you’ve never filed your own tax return, I strongly encourage you to check out CloudTax. It has the best offering of any free income tax software I’ve seen. (And it’s truly free. It doesn’t even ask you for a donation.)

My friend filed her tax return on her own the first time using CloudTax and she was surprised how easy it was. She plans to use CloudTax to file her tax returns in the coming years and you should consider it, too. Check out CloudTax today for the simplest free tax filing experience you’ve ever seen.

Note: This is a sponsored post by CloudTax, but was written and edited by me.

Sean Cooper is the bestselling author of the book, Burn Your Mortgage: The Simple, Powerful Path to Financial Freedom for Canadians, available now on Amazon and at Chapters, Indigo and major bookstores, and as an Audiobook on Amazon, Audible and iTunes.