CRA Form RC4288: Filing a Taxpayer Relief Request

CRA Form RC4288, the Taxpayer Relief Request, is how you ask the Canada Revenue Agency to cancel or waive penalties and interest on your tax account when something outside your control kept you from filing or paying on time. The form itself is short. The work is in the written explanation you attach and the evidence that backs it up.¹

Do You Qualify

The CRA considers three grounds for relief. You only need to fit one, but your request should say clearly which one and why.

Extraordinary circumstances. Events that genuinely prevented compliance: natural or human-made disasters, serious illness or accident, or significant emotional distress such as a death in the immediate family. You have to show a direct link between the event and the missed deadline or unpaid balance.²

CRA actions or errors. Processing delays that left you unaware of a balance owing, incorrect information from a CRA agent, errors in CRA publications you relied on, or undue delays resolving an objection or completing an audit.²

Financial hardship or inability to pay. The CRA may cancel interest when paying it would cause a prolonged inability to afford basics like food, medical care, transportation, or housing, or when interest would swallow most of any reasonable payment. Hardship alone is generally not enough to cancel penalties; the CRA typically wants to see an extraordinary circumstance behind the missed compliance as well. Interest, though, can be reduced on hardship grounds by itself.³

Filling Out the Form

Download the fillable PDF from the CRA website.¹ Work through it section by section.

Identification. Enter your Social Insurance Number if you are an individual, your Business Number if you are a corporation or partnership, or a trust account or other CRA-assigned number where applicable.⁴ Check the number against a recent Notice of Assessment. A wrong digit sends the request to the wrong account.

Tax years or fiscal periods. List every year or reporting period you want relief for. Be specific. Penalties from 2021 and interest from 2022 and 2023 means three separate entries.

Type of relief. Indicate whether you want penalties cancelled, interest waived, or both. Include dollar amounts if you know them, matched to the figures on your Notices of Assessment or Reassessment.

Detailed explanation. This is the part that decides the outcome. Write a chronological narrative: what happened, when, and how it directly prevented you from filing or paying. Vague statements like “I was going through a hard time” will not move a reviewer. Concrete facts will: “I was hospitalized from March 14 to May 2, 2023, and unable to access my records during that period.”

Documents To Attach

The CRA expects evidence that matches your grounds. Sending the form without documents is the fastest route to a denial.

Disasters: insurance statements, fire or police reports, or other official records of the event.⁴
Illness or accident: a doctor’s letter stating the type of illness, the treatment period with onset and expected recovery dates, applicable hospital dates, and how the condition affected your ability to handle tax obligations.⁴
Death of a loved one: a death certificate or obituary.⁴
CRA errors or delays: copies of CRA correspondence, notes from phone calls with dates and reference numbers, and any written information you relied on.⁴
Financial hardship: complete Form RC376 (Statement of Income and Expenses and Assets and Liabilities for Individuals) and attach it. Businesses and corporations provide the same information in a written statement with financial statements or other supporting documentation.³

For hardship cases, the CRA looks at income and expenses, assets and liabilities, your ability to borrow or sell assets, and what efforts you have already made to pay. For individuals, the reviewer may also consider the financial situation of household members such as a spouse or common-law partner.³ A short cover letter summarizing the package and pointing to the key documents helps in complex cases.

Submitting the Request

Online

The fastest route is through a CRA portal. In My Account, select “Request relief of penalties and interest” under Accounts and Payments. In My Business Account, use the same service from the program menu. Upload the completed form and all supporting documents, and save the confirmation number as proof of your submission date.⁴

An authorized representative can submit through Represent a Client if they already have valid authorization on file. To set one up, you can authorize them online through My Account or file Form AUT-01 by mail.⁵

By Mail

Mail the complete package to the Tax Centre for your region. The correct address is printed on the last page of the RC4288 based on your province or territory of residence.⁴ Use registered or tracked mail so you have proof of the delivery date.

After You Submit

The CRA aims to issue a decision within 180 calendar days of receiving the request. Current volumes have pushed most decisions to around twelve months, and complex cases run longer.⁶ Interest on your balance does not pause while the review is under way, so any payments you can make in the meantime reduce what continues to accrue.

You will get a decision letter approving the request in full, approving it in part, or denying it. A partial approval will identify which penalties or interest charges were cancelled and which were not.

If the CRA Denies Your Request

You can ask for a second administrative review. Submit it online or send a letter to the address on the decision letter, explaining what you disagree with, whether that is information the CRA did not consider or facts you believe were misinterpreted, and include any new supporting documents. The second review goes to a different official; nobody involved in the first decision takes part again.⁷

If you still believe the CRA did not properly exercise its discretion, you can apply to the Federal Court for judicial review. The application has to be filed within 30 calendar days of the CRA’s decision, using Form 301 (Notice of Application) with the required filing fee. The CRA recommends completing the second administrative review first. The Federal Court cannot substitute its own decision; if it finds the CRA acted improperly, it sends the matter back to a different CRA official for reconsideration.⁸

The 10-Year Limit

The Minister of National Revenue can only grant relief within a rolling 10-year window. The window advances every January 1, so a request filed in 2026 reaches back to tax years ending in 2016. Anything older is outside the Minister’s legal authority regardless of the circumstances.⁹ If you have old penalties and interest sitting on your account, the timing of your request matters.

Paying While You Wait

Filing RC4288 does not suspend your obligation to pay. If you cannot pay in full, set up a payment arrangement through My Account, My Business Account, or by phone. The CRA lets you schedule pre-authorized debit payments based on what you can afford, but you need to make a first payment to start the arrangement and stay current on your other filings.¹⁰ Miss a scheduled payment without contacting the CRA to adjust, and collection action can follow. Even with an active arrangement, the CRA may apply federal benefit payments toward the debt.

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Canada Revenue Agency. RC4288 Taxpayer Relief Request – Cancel or Waive Penalties and Interest
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Canada Revenue Agency. Who Can Apply – Cancel or Waive Penalties and Interest at the CRA
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Canada Revenue Agency. Taxpayer Relief Provisions
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Canada Revenue Agency. How to Apply – Cancel or Waive Penalties and Interest at the CRA
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Canada Revenue Agency. AUT-01 Authorize a Representative for Offline Access
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Canada Revenue Agency. Cancel or Waive Penalties and Interest at the CRA
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Canada Revenue Agency. Cancel or Waive Penalties and Interest at the CRA – After You Apply
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Canada Revenue Agency. Judicial Review
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Canada Revenue Agency. Limitation Period on Exercising Discretion and the Deadline for Requesting Relief
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Canada Revenue Agency. Arrange to Pay Your Debt Over Time