Tax Tips: How To Access Lost or Old T4 Slips

Lost your Old T4 slip?

If you’ve ever let your taxes slip and gotten a year or two behind on them, you know that hunting down your old employers for old T4 slips you may have lost can be a nightmare. Perhaps you stopped working there because they shut the doors - who do you contact for their employment records, then?

Luckily, as we advance further into a paperless world, the Canada Revenue Agency has got on board and made a lot of things much, much easier for Canadians come tax time. By now, most of us know we can file online, but did you know you can also access old tax returns, assessments, and other related documents, including your old T4s? It’s true, you can!

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If you’re struggling to find an old T4 slip, here’s how you do it:

1. Register, if you haven’t already, to use the Canada Revenue Agency to find your old T4 slips

Click here to register. For this, you’ll need your social insurance number, your date of birth, your postal code, and your tax returns from the previous two years. Once you’ve registered, you’ll be sent, via snail mail, a security code to verify your account. It should only take a couple of days to get your security code, and once you’ve entered that in, you can move on to step two.

2. Login to your CRA account

Once logged in you will land on your “My Account” page. There will be a sidebar with options on the left side, as well as tabs along the top of your account. From those tabs, choose “tax returns”.

3. Select tax information slips

Then, you’ll see “Tax information slips (T4 and more)” - select this. On the following page, you’ll be able to choose from a dropdown menu which year you want your old T4 slip from. Once you’ve chosen the year, the page will update with options under the “Information slip” dropdown menu. When you open that menu and see the T4 slip you’re missing, select it.

4. Choose your different documents (e. T4 slip)

On the page that loads from there, you’re going to see more information regarding the T4 slip in question, such as the name of your employer, and when it was issued. You’re also going to see a column labelled, “Type”. In that column, each item should be linked. When you click the link for the item you want to see, it will load the document you need.

It’s as simple as that! Just a few clicks through the CRA website and you’ve located the T4 slip that you turned your house upside down for. No matter if the company is still in business or not, you’re going to be able to grab any T4 slip you need with this process.

What are you going to do with your tax refund? Check out these 5 of the most financially responsible (even if they're not fun!) ways to use your tax refund. 

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