There are two certainties in life: death and taxes. However, for the first time in recent memory, due the ongoing Coronavirus pandemic, the tax filing and payment deadlines have been extended. For T1 individuals you had until June 1st to file your taxes, while T1 self-employed individuals had until June 15th to file their taxes.
But that’s not the only tax deadline that was extended. For a lot of Canadians money is tight right now due to COVID-19. As such, you also have until September 30th to pay your taxes (if you have a balance owing).
One of the biggest pain points of filing your taxes has to be paying your taxes. I know this first hand as I’m a small business owner. Paying your taxes can be a lot of work. It’s not as simple as just writing the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) a cheque. (It’s never that easy with the government.) There are various steps you need to go through to make payment.
I remember staying up until midnight one night trying to figure out a simple way to pay my taxes. To be honest, it was a pretty frustrating experience. I thought, there has to be a better way and thankfully there is: PaySimply.
Born out of Necessity
I wish I had discovered PaySimply when I was paying my taxes. Simply put it would have saved me a ton of time. If you’ve never heard of PaySimply, I’ll give you a brief run down.
PaySimply is an alternative and a better way to pay your taxes. Through the PaySimply website and its new mobile app you can quickly pay your taxes online and offline.
Launched back in 2018, PaySimply is one of the new kids on the block, born out of necessity. Remembering to pay your taxes and avoiding penalties is a constant struggle for many Canadians. That and making tax payments anytime and anywhere. To address these pain points, PaySimply was born. I checked out the website and mobile app myself.
The PaySimply website has a sleek design. It’s a clean and easy to use website. It has everything laid out in a visually appealing way. The website boasts that it’s safe and secure, which is very important in today’s age of cyber crime and identity theft.
Filing your taxes online is a simple six step process. Start by choosing whether you’re paying individual or business taxes. Enter your tax identification number. Choose your payment option, review to make sure you’ve entered everything correctly, make payment and get confirmation your payment has gone through. It doesn’t get any easier than that!
PaySimply offers more ways than you can imagine to pay your taxes online. You can pay by credit card, e-Transfer, PayPal, installment, debit and even cash. (And in case you’re interested, not only can you pay your taxes, you can also pay property taxes, water and sewer, tuition, electricity and gas bills.)
Introducing the New Mobile App
With the success of the website, PaySimply has recently launched a mobile app. The PaySimply mobile app offers the same simplicity and functionality of the website at your fingertips.
I tested out the app and it was quite easy to use. You can set up the remittance information for the type of tax you would like to pay by scanning the QR code on your CRA remittance voucher (or failing that, manually entering it).
The app allows you to choose from a slew of payment methods. Pay by credit card, e-Transfer or show the bar code at your local Canada Post outlet to pay by debit or cash.
To make the process easier, you can save your credit card information to the app to make payment with the simple click of a button. (Your credit card information is protected with a secure token on the app.) This is especially helpful if you’ll have to make regular payments, such as paying GST/HST quarterly if you’re a small business owner like me.
The Bottom Line
If you haven’t paid your taxes yet this year and you’re looking for a simpler way, be sure to check out PaySimply and enjoy a simpler tax payment process. Visit the website or download the app for free from the App Store and Google Play.
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.