Can I ask the CRA to cancel penalties and interest?

Yes. Form RC4288 is the request, and it serves ten separate Acts, with the income tax and GST/HST penalty clocks anchored differently, so settle the account first. This page runs the income tax version, under ITA 220(3.1), and flags where GST/HST diverges. That subsection reaches penalty and interest and not the tax, and for a penalty it runs out ten calendar years after the end of the taxation year, while the CRA runs the interest limb on the last ten calendar years of accruals instead.

What’s Form RC4288?

It is the CRA’s request form for taxpayer relief under ITA 220(3.1), covering penalty and interest cancellation or waiver. The form serves ten separate Acts, with income tax and GST/HST penalty clocks anchored differently. Filing it asks the Minister to exercise a discretionary power, so the outcome is never guaranteed. The request must reach the CRA within ten calendar years after the end of the taxation year. What the form does not reach is the underlying tax, which sits under a separate provision (ITA 152(4.2)) on its own application.

• Extraordinary circumstances
• CRA actions or delays
• Inability to pay and financial hardship

What can the CRA actually cancel?

Penalty and interest. Nothing in ITA 220(3.1) reaches the underlying tax, and the marginal note on that subsection is simply “Waiver of penalty or interest”. This matters most for people arriving late to a cross-border filing obligation, who often hope relief will make the whole liability go away. Under this subsection it won’t. A separate provision, ITA 152(4.2), can reach an amount payable instead, on its own application, but only for an individual other than a trust or a graduated rate estate, and there too the Minister may reassess rather than must.

“The Minister may, on or before the day that is ten calendar years after the end of a taxation year of a taxpayer … or on application by the taxpayer or partnership on or before that day, waive or cancel all or any portion of any penalty or interest otherwise payable under this Act by the taxpayer or partnership in respect of that taxation year” ITA 220(3.1)

Note “all or any portion”. Partial relief is expressly contemplated, so a decision that cancels some of the interest and leaves the rest is the statute working normally rather than a refusal to engage.

What none of that settles is whether the tax figure itself can move. It can, on a different provision. ITA 152(4.2) runs a ten-calendar-year clock of its own, under which the Minister may reduce an amount payable, for an individual other than a trust or for a graduated rate estate:

“Notwithstanding subsections (4), (4.1) and (5), for the purpose of determining … at any time after the end of the normal reassessment period, of a taxpayer who is an individual (other than a trust) or a graduated rate estate, in respect of a taxation year … the amount of any refund to which the taxpayer is entitled at that time for the year, or a reduction of an amount payable under this Part by the taxpayer for the year, the Minister may, if the taxpayer makes an application for that determination on or before the day that is 10 calendar years after the end of that taxation year, … reassess tax, interest or penalties payable under this Part by the taxpayer in respect of that year” ITA 152(4.2)

Same ten-year length, different provision, different application, and a class narrowed to an individual other than a trust and to a graduated rate estate. If an old year was assessed arbitrarily because you never filed, that is the provision under which the Minister may revisit the tax number, and RC4288 is not. This page does not work through the conditions on a 152(4.2) application.

How far back can I go?

Ten calendar years after the end of the taxation year, for a penalty. That’s ITA 220(3.1), so the penalty clock isn’t tied to the date you were assessed, the date you filed, or the date the problem came to light. Which year end you count from depends on who you are, because ITA 249(1) makes a taxation year the calendar year for an individual and a fiscal period for a corporation or Canadian resident partnership. Interest sits on a different clock the CRA administers: it may be waived where it accrued within the last ten calendar years before the year of the request.

“on or before the day that is ten calendar years after the end of a taxation year of a taxpayer (or in the case of a partnership, a fiscal period of the partnership)” ITA 220(3.1)

The practical consequence is a rolling deadline nobody sends you a reminder about. For an individual, whose taxation year is the calendar year, a request made anywhere in 2026 reaches the 2016 taxation year’s penalties and no further back, and on 1 January 2027 the 2016 year is gone for that purpose. A corporation or Canadian resident partnership counts the same ten years off its fiscal period instead, so a 30 June year end loses its 2016 penalties on 30 June 2026 and not at the end of December. If you’re sitting on old unfiled years, the arithmetic on which of them are still reachable is worth doing before anything else.

That is the statute’s result and the conservative one. The CRA’s own limitation-period page frames the penalty limb on a calendar-year measure: a taxpayer has ten years from the end of the calendar year in which the tax year or fiscal period at issue ended to request penalty relief. On that framing the same 30 June 2016 year end stays open through 31 December 2026, because the calendar year in which it ended is 2016. For an individual the two produce the same date. For a non-calendar fiscal period the CRA’s framing gives more time, and a corporation sitting on a year that looks closed on the statute should check the CRA’s own administration before treating it as lost.

“In this Act, except as expressly otherwise provided, a taxation year is (a) in the case of a corporation or Canadian resident partnership, a fiscal period; (b) in the case of a graduated rate estate, the period for which the accounts of the estate are made up for purposes of assessment under this Act; and (c) in any other case, a calendar year.” ITA 249(1)

That anchor is not the whole of it, because the CRA administers the two limbs of ITA 220(3.1) on two clocks. Penalty relief it keys to the tax year, as the subsection does. Interest it keys to the year the interest accrued:

“Under the 10-year limitation period, the Minister may cancel or waive interest that accrued within the last 10 calendar years before the year the request is made for any tax year or reporting period.” CRA, Limitation period on exercising discretion and the deadline for requesting relief

So a year that is out of reach for its penalties can still carry interest that is not. Interest that accrued inside the last ten calendar years is open for consideration whatever year the debt itself is from, which is worth checking before an old year gets written off. This is the CRA’s administration of the discretion rather than a second statutory rule, and the Minister may still decline.

Does the same rule apply to GST/HST?

No, and that is the trap in one form serving ten Acts. RC4288’s own privacy notice lists the Income Tax Act, the Excise Tax Act and eight others, and its section 3 asks which account the penalty sits on: corporation RC, employer RP, GST/HST RT, information returns RZ, or a trust or non-resident account. On the GST/HST side the governing provision is ETA 281.1, and it keys the ten years to the end of a reporting period rather than a taxation year. That is the statutory anchor, but the CRA measures its penalty window from the calendar year the period ended in, which can run later.

“The Minister may, on or before the day that is 10 calendar years after the end of a reporting period of a person, or on application by the person on or before that day, waive or cancel interest payable by the person under section 280 on an amount that is required to be remitted or paid by the person under this Part in respect of the reporting period.” ETA 281.1(1)

Two differences bite, and both are on the penalty side. The anchor is a reporting period rather than a taxation year, and a reporting period can be monthly, quarterly or annual, so on the statute’s words a monthly period that ended 31 January 2016 closes on 31 January 2026 and not at the end of that year. The CRA administers it more generously than that. Under its GST/HST heading the same limitation page reaches a reporting period that ended within ten years before the calendar year of the request, for the penalties under sections 280.1, 280.11 and 284.01, so that January 2016 period stays eligible for consideration on a request filed any time in 2026. And the penalty limb is a closed list rather than any penalty at all:

“The Minister may, on or before the day that is 10 calendar years after the end of a reporting period of a person, or on application by the person on or before that day, waive or cancel all or any portion of any (a) penalty that became payable by the person under section 280 before April 1, 2007, in respect of the reporting period; and (b) penalty payable by the person under section 280.1, 280.11 or 284.01 in respect of a return for the reporting period.” ETA 281.1(2)

So a GST/HST exposure is not answered by reading the income tax rule and swapping the words. What ETA 281.1 reaches on the interest side is interest under section 280, and on the penalty side a section 280 penalty that became payable before 1 April 2007, plus penalties under 280.1, 280.11 or 284.01. The other Acts on the form are not sourced here. On interest the two Acts converge rather than diverge: the CRA page quoted above runs the interest limb on one rule for both, interest that accrued within the last ten calendar years before the year of the request, “for any tax year or reporting period”. What this section establishes is that on the penalty side the income tax answer is not the RC4288 answer.

Does being statute-barred stop the CRA from granting relief?

No. The override in ITA 220(3.1) is on the assessment of interest and penalties needed to reflect a cancellation, made notwithstanding subsections 152(4) to (5). ITA 152(4) allows a reassessment past a taxpayer’s normal reassessment period only in listed circumstances, and ITA 152(3.1) sets that period at three years from the earlier of the original assessment notice and an original nil notification, four years for a mutual fund trust or a corporation that is not a Canadian-controlled private corporation. So a statute-barred year is not by itself an answer to a relief request.

“and notwithstanding subsections 152(4) to (5), any assessment of the interest and penalties payable by the taxpayer or partnership shall be made that is necessary to take into account the cancellation of the penalty or interest.” ITA 220(3.1)

That override is not a general reopening of the year, and this page makes no claim that it lets anything else be adjusted. Note also that the 152(4) to (5) range is not uniformly a restriction: ITA 152(4.2), which sits inside it, is a taxpayer-favourable extension.

Is relief something I am entitled to?

No. In ITA 220(3.1) the operative word is “may”, not “shall”, and that single word is the difference between a right and a request. Compare the departure-tax security provision later in the same section, ITA 220(4.5), where the statute says the Minister shall accept adequate security once the individual elects, for the lesser of two computed amounts and only until a later balance-due day. Relief under 220(3.1) carries no equivalent. The outcome is discretionary.

What you are asking for	Does ITA 220(3.1) reach it?
Interest charged on a late balance	Yes, in whole or in part
Late-filing and other penalties	Yes, in whole or in part
The tax itself	No
A penalty for a taxation year that ended more than ten calendar years ago	No
Interest that accrued inside the last ten calendar years, on an older year	Yes, on the CRA’s administration of the discretion
A year otherwise closed to reassessment	Yes, to the extent needed to reflect the cancellation

• Quiet disclosure compared with streamlined, for the US side of arriving late
• Catching up on late T1135s, and how the Voluntary Disclosures Program works, for the Canadian side of arriving late
• I got a CRA reassessment and I think it’s wrong, the step-by-step on filing a notice of objection when the reassessment itself is the problem
• CRA late-filing penalties: automatic vs discretionary, the penalty math (5%+1%/month standard, 10%+2%/month repeated) and when the CRA waives them
• Whether you are still a Canadian tax resident, which usually decides whether the years were filing years at all
• How to defer Canadian departure tax on Form T1244, where ITA 220(4.5) says shall rather than may

Being clear about what this page does not claim. It doesn’t set out the grounds the CRA weighs, name what counts as a circumstance beyond your control, or say anything about how the request is decided in practice. Those live in CRA’s information circular on taxpayer relief, which the form’s own page identifies as IC07-01, and none of it is sourced here. This page establishes the outer limits of the power, not how discretion inside those limits gets exercised. It also does not work through the relief provisions in the other Acts RC4288 serves, beyond ETA 281.1 on the GST/HST side, or the conditions on an ITA 152(4.2) application. And it does not compare RC4288 against the Voluntary Disclosures Program. It names the VDP because an unfiled-years reader who has not been contacted should weigh it first, and it sources only that routing point; the VDP’s other conditions, relief levels, application form and refusal recourse sit on CRA’s program pages and on the T1135 catch-up guide linked above.

What should I do next?

Start with the account: an income tax year and a GST/HST period need not end on the same day. Add ten calendar years to each period end for a penalty, then check the CRA’s limitation page, which counts from the calendar year the period ended in and can run later. Interest is bounded too, to the last ten calendar years of accruals rather than the debt’s year. Neither ITA 220(3.1) nor the Voluntary Disclosures Program reaches the tax. If the years are unfiled and nobody has contacted you, weigh the program first: a qualifying application carries prosecution relief.

This guide is general information, not tax advice for your specific situation. Which points apply, and how, depends on your facts.