Change my return: online adjustments for income tax and benefits returns

Overview

Change my return is a service in My Account that allows you to request a change to your income tax and benefit return after you receive your notice of assessment or notice of reassessment.

It makes it easy to change your return online by guidinge you through common changes such as:

• adding tax information slips 
• claiming the disability tax credit

As well, it includes questions and messages when the CRA:

• needs more information
• detects errors
• needs supporting documents to finalize your request

Claim the disability tax credit

This option will be available to you if you have been approved to claim the disability tax credit (DTC) for:

• yourself
• your dependant(s)
• your spouse or common-law partner

If you have not been approved to claim the DTC, you will not see this option.

Go to What is the DTC for information on who is eligible for this credit and how to apply.

If you do not want to claim the DTC, select "Next" to continue to Change my return.

You can claim the DTC on one or more of your returns by using this option. The system will apply both the federal and provincial or territorial credits to their maximum amounts, if available, for each year. You can use this option to claim a disability amount in multiple situations:

• For a disability amount for self
  • Select each year you would like to claim the DTC for. Do not select years for returns you have already claimed it on.
• For a disability amount transferred from a dependant
  • select each year for which you would like to claim the DTC if you have one eligible dependant. Do not select years for returns you have already claimed it on.
  • select all the dependants and tax years you want to claim. If you have multiple dependants you are eligible to claim in the same tax years, include them all even if they were already claimed on your returns..
• For a disability amount transferred from your spouse:
  • select each year you would like to claim the DTC for. Do not select years for returns where you have already claimed it.
  • update your spouse’s or common-law partner’s adjusted taxable income, if necessary, on lines 351/36100 and 5912/59120 (for more information, see Schedule 2).
• For all types of claims:
  • enter any related child care expenses or attendant care expenses that you or another individual claimed in the year if you or the person you are claiming the credit for is under 18 years of age at the end of the year. For more information, go to Attendant care and care in a facility and the federal, provincial, or territorial worksheets for your province of residence found on the Get a T1 income tax package page.

After you make your selections and update the required fields, select "Next". We will ask if you want to make any more changes to your returns.

• Select "Yes" if you would like to make more changes. This will take you to the Select the year screen where you can choose which year you would like to make changes to.
• Select "No" if you do not have any more changes to make. This will take you to the Provide additional information screen, followed by the Review and submit screen that will show you a summary of your changes.

Select the year

Select the year you want to change from the list of available years in the drop-down menu. Then select "Next".

You can request a change to a tax return for any of the 10 previous calendar years. For example, if you make a request in 2024, it must relate to the 2014 or later return.

If you want to change a return for a year that does not appear in the list in the drop-down menu, send the request to your tax centre in writing.

If you select a year you have already completed, the entries you made in the Provide Additional Information step for that year will not be saved. You will have to redo the step.

Additional options in Change my return

You can make online requests to apply these losses:

• carry-back amounts, such as:
  • capital losses
  • non-capital losses
• carry-forward amounts, such as:
  • farming losses
  • fishing losses
  • restricted farm losses

You can make an online election to spit pension income.

You can use Change my return to change certain international and non-resident returns, such as:

• deemed resident returns
• factual resident returns
• immigrant returns
• emigrant returns
• section 115 returns
• deemed non-resident returns

For more information on filing a non-resident return, go to Non-residents of Canada.

You cannot use Change my return to change:

• a return that has not been assessed yet
• bankruptcy return
• a return for the year before the year of bankruptcy
• international and non-resident returns not shown in the previous list
• a return where you have to complete Form T2203, Provincial and Territorial Taxes for Multiple Jurisdictions for income from a business that has a permanent establishment outside your province or territory of residence
• a return the CRA filed under subsection 152(7) of the Income Tax Act

In any of these cases, send all of the following to your tax centre:

• a completed Form T1-ADJ, T1 Adjustment Request, providing the details of your request (including the years of the returns you want us to change), your social insurance number, your address, and a phone number where we can reach you during the day
  • the details of your request (including the years of the returns you want us to change)
  • your social insurance number
  • your address
  • a phone number where we can reach you during the day
• supporting documents for the entire amount, including amounts you already claimed but did not previously send documents for

Also, you cannot use Change my return to apply for the:

• Canada child benefit
• disability tax credit
• goods and services tax / harmonized sales tax credit

For more information about benefits you can apply for, go to Tax credits and benefits for individuals.

Search for tax line feature

Enter either:

• a line number from the income tax and benefit return, such as "12600," or
• text to describe the line you want to find, such as "rental income"

From the search results list, find the line you want to change and select it. For example, click on "line 12600".

If you want to go to a specific section of the return, select that section from the drop-down menu below the search box. For example, you can find line 12600 by selecting "Total Income" in the drop-down menu.

Change a line

If you use the Search feature, the cursor will appear in the New Amount box of the line you want to change. Enter the dollar amount you want to show on your return after the change is complete.

If you select the section of the return from the drop-down menu, enter the new amount in the box beside the line you want to change. If the line does not appear, use the search feature to enter the line and select it to add it to the related section below. Enter the dollar amount of the change you want to make in the New Amount box.

Add amounts from tax information slips

Use this option to add amounts from the tax information slips that are on file with the CRA.

The slips are grouped together based on their type and labeled with their last date modified. If the date is bolded, it means we changed the slip after the most recent assessment or reassessment.

Some slips have more fields you can change as needed. If you need to update these fields, do it before adding your slips. You can add information by selecting one of the available options:

• "Exchange rate"
  • If a slip is not reported in Canadian dollars, enter the rate used to convert this to Canadian dollars (the default rate is 1.00. You can find the rates on the Bank of Canada website).
• "Percentage of slip claimed"
  • If a slip has income from a joint account, enter the percentage of the slip you are claiming on your return. (The default amount is 100%).

You have two options:

• "Add selected slips to my return"
  • Select each slip you want to add to your return from the list and select this option to add them to the old amount reported on your return.
  • Add only the slips you have not previously reported on your return to avoid duplicating the amounts.
• "Match all slips to my return"
  • Select this option to total all of the information slips shown in the list and change the new amount reported on your return to equal the sum of their values.

After selecting one of the options, you may be asked to determine the line for the amounts to be reported on.

Then you will get a summary of the changes you are requesting. You will be able to remove a change from the list or modify any of the values listed to match any additional information you have.

If you agree with what is shown on the summary, select "Add changes" to include these amounts to your existing request. 

You can add any additional changes or review your request before submitting the changes.

Additional information

After making changes, you may need to provide more information:

• A mandatory correction – You must provide the identified information before you can submit your change.
• A mandatory question – You must respond yes or no to submit your change. After you respond, select "Continue"
• An optional correction – You may want to provide more information if the warning applies to your tax situation.

After each stage, select "Confirm my answers" to continue with your request.

If you select "Back" to return to the Change my return main page, the entries you have made during this step will not be saved, and you may have to make corrections or answer questions again.

If you have given all the necessary information and answered all the questions, select "Next" to get to the Review and submit page.

Review and submit your changes

The Review and submit page summarizes the changes you made.

• The old amount is the dollar amount currently on your return.
• The change amount is the dollar amount of the increase or decrease you are requesting.
• The new amount is the dollar amount you want to show on your return after the change is completed.

You may receive a message stating that certain amounts were changed automatically. You can see the results of these changes in the summary for each year.

If you want to make other changes, select "Edit". This will take you to the Provide Additional Information step for this year and you will have to redo the step.

If you want to make changes to another year, select "Add another tax year" when the option is available.

If you do not need to make further changes, read the certification statement, tick the box to agree, and select "Submit changes". If you are using assistive technology, you can use the spacebar to tick the checkbox and to submit your changes.

Confirmation number

Keep the confirmation number for your records, and keep all your receipts and supporting documents in case we ask to see them.