The CRA has $1billion in Uncashed Cheques

The Canada Revenue Agency is sitting on a windfall of more than $1billion in cheques left uncashed by taxpayers over the past 20 years.  If you are one of the 5 million Canadians who didn't cash their cheque from the CRA between 1998 and 2018 then your money is still waiting for you.

In late February 2019 the CRA launched a new online tool called "Uncashed Cheques" the goal being to find the owners of 7.6 million cheques still sitting in government coffers.  Usually cheques are forgotten because people move and do not update their address with the CRA, or some people believe that the cheque was issued to them in error, or the cheque was lost, stolen or destroyed.  It has always possible to claim money owed but it was a lot more complicated than the new system. For the launch of tax season on February 24th the CRA created an online verification tool that every tax payer can access via the CRA's website.  

Once logged into the My account service (if you don't already have it now is a good time to set it up), click on the "uncashed cheques" link at the bottom of the "Related Services" column on the "Overview" page.

Most taxpayers are not aware of this new service so you might have a pleasant surprise when you log in.  The CRA encourages you to sign up for direct deposit payments to ensure that you receive monies due to you, but if you do not register the CRA will mail a cheque out to the address that they have on file for you (so make sure it is the right one!).  

You might wonder why the CRA doesn't just send you the money if they know it is due to you.  Well, Government cheques never expire or stale date so they cannot be voided and reissued unless  requested by a taxpayer.  To date dozens of Canadians have discovered uncashed cheques ranging from a few dollars to over $10,000, check it out and good luck.

From an article by Chris Nardi in the National Post March 3, 2020