Can I ask the CRA to cancel penalties and interest?

Yes. Form RC4288 is the request, and the power behind it is ITA 220(3.1). Two things about that subsection decide almost every one of these files before the story you plan to tell matters at all. It reaches penalty and interest and not the tax itself, and it runs out ten calendar years after the end of the taxation year rather than ten years after you were assessed or ten years after you found out. Get those two straight first, because a request outside them fails on the wording regardless of how sympathetic the facts are.

What can the CRA actually cancel?

Penalty and interest. Nothing in the subsection reaches the underlying tax, and the marginal note on it 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. It won’t.

“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. Note too that the subsection covers both waiving amounts not yet charged and cancelling amounts already assessed.

How far back can I go?

Ten calendar years after the end of the taxation year. That’s the phrase in the subsection, and the two words doing the work are “calendar” and “end”. The clock isn’t tied to the date you were assessed, the date you filed, or the date the problem came to light. It attaches to the year itself.

“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. A request made in 2026 reaches the 2016 taxation year and no further back, and on 1 January 2027 the 2016 year is gone for this purpose. If you’re sitting on old unfiled years, the arithmetic on which of them are still reachable is worth doing before anything else.

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

No, and the subsection says so in terms. It overrides the normal reassessment limits so that an assessment can be made to give effect to the cancellation. So a year being outside the ordinary reassessment period 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)

Read the scope of that override precisely. It authorises an assessment of the interest and penalties needed to reflect the cancellation. It’s not a general reopening of the year, and this page makes no claim that it lets anything else be adjusted.

Is relief something I am entitled to?

No. 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, where the statute says the Minister shall accept adequate security once the taxpayer elects. Here 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 taxation year that ended more than ten calendar years ago	No
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
• 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 the same section 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.

What should I do next?

Do the arithmetic first. List the years at issue, add ten calendar years to the end of each one, and cross off anything already past. Then separate the tax from the penalty and interest on the years that survive, because that second number is the only one this request can change. What you are left with is the actual size of the prize, and it tells you how much effort the narrative is worth.

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