A question that comes up from time to time is whether a Notice of Assessment from the Canada Revenue Agency (“CRA”) is valid if you never received it?
The answer is, as long as the CRA sent it addressed to you at the last known address that you provided to them , then it’s valid, even though you may never have received it.
There is an obligation on the taxpayer to keep the CRA informed of your correct address and contact information. So, if you’ve moved and you didn’t advise the CRA of your new address, then they are entitled to send it to whatever address that they have on file that you gave them on your last tax return, and the Notice of Assessment is valid, whether you actually received it or not.
If a taxpayer objects to the Notice of Assessment on the grounds that they never received it, then the onus of proof is on the CRA to prove that they sent it to the correct address. They do not have to prove that you actually received it. Anybody who tells you that the CRA has to prove you received it is WRONG ! You are deemed to have received it once they establish that they sent it.
The CRA can usually prove that they sent the Notice of Assessment on a particular date by providing an affidavit from a CRA employee who is knowledgeable in CRA’s procedures or by registered mail.
Always check the postmark on the envelope from the CRA to show the date that it was actually mailed. Usually, it is the same date as the date stated on the Notice of Assessment, but I have had cases where the date of mailing was later than the date on the Notice of Assessment, and that may become important for calculating the time limit for appealing an assessment that you disagree with.