2025 Tax Filing Documents Checklist for IT Contractors & Tech Consultants

01. Income and Receivables

The goal here is a complete picture of everything earned in 2025. IT contractors often have income from multiple sources – T4As from some clients, no slips from others, platform payouts, foreign payments, and crypto. This section covers business income and business-related receipts. Personal investment reporting is listed separately at the end of this section.

□ T4A slips from clients or platforms (if issued)

All business income must be reported regardless of whether a T4A was issued.

□ T4 slip (if you also had employment income in 2025)

Required if you were employed and self-employed in the same year.

First-year contractors: self-employment income triggers both the employer and employee portions of CPP contributions. No separate slip is required for this calculation. CPP on self-employment income is calculated at filing based on your net self-employment income. The amount can be significant and should be planned for.

□ Full invoice list for 2025 (or accounting revenue report)

Include: Client name, invoice date and number, amount, tax charged, currency, and paid or unpaid status.

This is often the primary income support when T4A slips are missing or incomplete.

□ Client contracts, SOWs, and engagement letters (all active in 2025)

Confirms service type, billing terms, reimbursements, client location, and GST/HST treatment.

□ Work-in-progress (if billing milestones extend beyond year-end)

Watch for: Revenue earned but not yet invoiced. This must still be reported under accrual accounting rules. Applies to fixed-fee engagements where work was performed in 2025 but invoicing is scheduled for 2026.

□ Platform payout summaries and annual information reports

Upwork, Fiverr, Toptal, Deel, Malt, Freelancer

Include: Annual summaries, fee breakdowns, and any annual information report or seller tax information statement the platform issued.

Under CRA’s digital platform rules (Part XX), reporting operators must generally provide reportable sellers with a copy of the annual information reported to the CRA by January 31. This is separate from a general payout export.

Watch for: Platform fees embedded in payout summaries rather than issued as separate invoices.

□ Payment processor reports and fee summaries

Stripe, PayPal, Wise, Revolut Business, bank wire fees

Watch for: FX conversion fees hidden in bank transactions. These are deductible but only if documented.

□ Business bank statements (or export) for 2025

Used to reconcile deposits and identify missing invoices, reimbursements, or personal transfers.

□ Year-end unpaid invoices (accounts receivable as of December 31, 2025)

Invoices issued but unpaid at year-end must still be reported as income under the accrual method.

□ Reimbursed expenses from clients (if any)

Watch for: Double counting. If a reimbursement is reported as income, the underlying expense may already be claimed separately.

□ Foreign client payment records

Include: Amount, currency, date received, and exchange-rate support or conversion method used. Use a consistent method across the year.

Foreign currency income must be converted to CAD for T1 reporting. Bank of Canada exchange rates are a commonly used reference.

□ Foreign withholding documents (if applicable)

U.S. withholding statements (1042-S), platform withholding summaries

May affect foreign tax reporting or credits on your T1.

□ Crypto-asset payment records (if applicable)

Applies if you received payment in cryptocurrency, paid for business expenses using crypto, or earned income from blockchain-related activities such as staking, mining, yield farming, or token grants.

Include: Date, amount in original currency, CAD fair market value at time of receipt or payment, transaction type, and wallet addresses or transaction exports (CSV or blockchain explorer links).

Crypto received for services is business income. Subsequent disposition of that crypto may trigger a capital gain or further business income. Each receipt must be valued in CAD at the time of the transaction. Applies to blockchain developers, Web3 contractors, and IT contractors paid in tokens or stablecoins.

□ Personal investment slips (if applicable)

T3, T5, T5008, brokerage tax package

Personal return items, not T2125 business income, but required for a complete T1.

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02. GST/HST

GST/HST runs parallel to income and must be reconciled separately. This is a high-risk area for IT contractors with remote or foreign clients, where place-of-supply rules are not always obvious. If you crossed the $30,000 threshold in 2025 and have not registered, that is the first item to address.

□ GST/HST number and filing frequency (if registered)

Include: Registration date, effective date, and whether you file monthly, quarterly, or annually.

□ Total GST/HST collected (or collectible) in 2025

Must be kept separate from service revenue on your records.

□ Total GST/HST paid on business expenses (if registered and claiming ITCs)

T2125 expenses are generally adjusted for ITCs claimed where applicable. Required to reconcile your GST/HST returns against your income-tax expense reporting.

□ GST/HST returns filed in 2025 (confirmations and notices)

Include: Filing confirmations, assessments and reassessments, and adjustment notices.

Reduces mismatch risk between your GST/HST filings and your T1 records.

□ Quick Method election or confirmation (if applicable)

Changes how GST/HST is reported and reconciled on both your GST/HST return and your T2125. Must be noted upfront.

□ Client location list for all 2025 clients

Include: Legal entity name and billing location (province or country) for each client.

Required for place-of-supply review and GST/HST treatment of each invoice.

□ Two to five sample invoices showing how you applied (or did not apply) tax

One Canadian client invoice with GST/HST charged; one non-resident client invoice if applicable; one platform payout example.

Watch for: Zero-rating depends on place-of-supply rules and whether the recipient qualifies as a non-resident under the Excise Tax Act. Documentation must support the treatment applied to each invoice.

□ Not registered? Flag if revenue may have exceeded the small-supplier threshold

Registration is required once worldwide taxable supplies exceed $30,000 in a single calendar quarter, or over four consecutive calendar quarters. Taxable supplies include zero-rated supplies but exclude exempt supplies.

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03. Shared Expenses (Allocation Required)

These expenses require a defensible business-use allocation before any deduction can be claimed. Home office, phone, internet, and vehicle costs all involve personal use that must be separated from business use. The documentation requirement is an allocation method you can support, not every receipt.

□ Home workspace details, size and use

Include: Total home square footage, workspace square footage, and whether the space is dedicated or mixed-use.

Self-employed business-use-of-home expenses are allowed if the workspace is your principal place of business, or if you use the space only to earn business income and use it regularly and on an ongoing basis to meet clients, customers, or patients. A mixed-use room may still qualify if it is the principal place of business, subject to reasonable allocation.

□ Rent receipts (renters) or mortgage interest details (homeowners)

Homeowners: Provide a mortgage statement showing the interest and principal split.

Principal repayment is not deductible. Interest only.

□ Utility bills for 2025 (annual totals or monthly statements)

Electricity, heating, water

Annual totals are sufficient for initial intake. Retain underlying statements in case of CRA review.

□ Internet bills, annual total and your estimated business-use percentage

Allocation required. Do not assume 100% unless the connection is exclusively for business use.

□ Mobile phone and business phone bills, annual total and business-use percentage

Common uses: Client calls, MFA and 2FA, hotspot for on-site work, on-call support.

A separate business-only mobile line can be claimed in full. A shared personal plan requires a percentage allocation.

□ Home insurance annual premium

Allocation required. Relevant to the home office calculation.

□ Property tax bill (homeowners only)

Allocation required. Relevant to the home office calculation.

□ Co-working space receipts (if applicable)

Co-working fees are generally deductible in full as a direct business expense. If you also claim a home office, the two may need to be reconciled to reflect actual business-use patterns.

□ Large home-office equipment purchases, flag for review

Standing desk, ergonomic chair, UPS, docking station, networking gear

Large home-office equipment purchases may be capital assets and may require CCA treatment rather than a current expense deduction. Treatment depends on the item, cost, and business-use percentage. Flag for review.

□ Business-use percentage notes for all mixed-use assets

For: Laptop, phone, tablet, internet, and any equipment used for both personal and work purposes.

Provide a reasonable percentage estimate and a short rationale. The estimate must be defensible, not perfect.

□ Mileage log for business vehicle use in 2025 (if applicable)

Include: Date, destination, business purpose, and kilometres driven for each trip.

Most IT contractors work remotely and will have no vehicle claim. Include only if you regularly drove to client sites, data centres, or documented business meetings. A contemporaneous log is significantly stronger than a reconstructed estimate.

□ Total kilometres driven in 2025: business and personal (if claiming vehicle)

Used to calculate the business-use percentage applied to all vehicle expenses.

□ Vehicle expense receipts or annual totals by category (if claiming vehicle)

Fuel, insurance, repairs, registration, business-related parking and tolls, loan interest

Annual totals by category are sufficient for initial intake. Retain individual receipts in case of CRA review.

□ Vehicle lease agreement or financing statement (if applicable)

Lease and interest deductions are subject to annual CRA limits. Do not estimate these independently – the limits change year to year.

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04. Direct Business Expenses

These expenses are receipt-based and do not require a percentage allocation, provided they were used entirely or primarily for business. The tech tooling categories are significant and consistently under-reported by IT contractors.

□ Hardware and equipment receipts (2025 purchases)

Laptop, desktop, monitors, server or mini PC, external drives, NAS, router, switch, firewall, headset, webcam, test phone or tablet

Include: Purchase date, vendor, amount, and estimated business-use percentage for any mixed-use item.

Hardware and equipment are often capital assets and may need to be claimed through CCA rather than as a current expense. First-year CCA treatment can vary based on the CCA class, business-use percentage, acquisition and available-for-use dates, and the tax rules in effect for the year. The enhanced immediate expensing incentive that applied to certain eligible property in prior years has expired for most purchases made after December 31, 2023. For 2025 purchases, the half-year rule will generally apply in the year of acquisition, limiting the CCA claim to 50% of the normal annual rate for most classes. Do not assume full first-year write-off. Flag all hardware purchases for class-specific review.

□ Developer tools and coding subscriptions

GitHub or GitLab paid plans, JetBrains, Docker Desktop, Postman or Insomnia Pro, CI/CD tooling

Include: Annual totals by tool. Flag any multi-year prepaid contracts separately.

Watch for: Prepaid multi-year contracts. Only the portion applying to 2025 is deductible this year – the remainder is deducted in the years the benefit is received.

Watch for: Personal subscriptions mixed with business tools, particularly GitHub plans used for both work and side projects.

□ Cloud infrastructure and hosting services

AWS, Azure, GCP, DigitalOcean, Hetzner, Vercel, Netlify, Cloudflare, managed database, storage, CDN, DNS

Watch for: Client-billable or reimbursed charges that may cause double counting if also claimed as an expense.

□ AI and API usage (if used for client work)

OpenAI, Anthropic, Google AI, Hugging Face, vector DB and LLM tooling, API credits

CRA expects the business portion only. Keep records distinguishing client work from personal experimentation.

□ Scientific Research and Experimental Development (SR&ED) – flag if applicable

Applies if you conducted experimental development work in 2025: building novel algorithms, training custom models, researching new AI architectures, or developing genuinely new technical approaches rather than applying existing methods.

SR&ED may provide an investment tax credit (ITC) for eligible work. Note: Sole proprietors generally earn non-refundable ITCs federally, though some provincial credits may be refundable. This is a separate claim from your T2125 expenses and requires a dedicated review before filing.

□ General business SaaS tools

Microsoft 365, Google Workspace, Adobe Creative Cloud, PM or CRM tools, accounting software

Watch for: Personal subscriptions mixed in with business tools.

□ Domains, hosting, SSL, and business email

Watch for: Auto-renewals that are paid but not captured in bookkeeping.

□ Security and compliance tooling

Password manager, VPN, endpoint protection, backups, monitoring and logging tools

Watch for: Auto-renewals that run in the background and are not captured in bookkeeping.

□ Business telecom and collaboration tools

Zoom, Slack paid plans, Teams or VOIP, conferencing tools

□ Software or licences purchased specifically for client delivery

Watch for: Items mixed into general software spend that relate directly to a specific client engagement.

□ E&O, professional liability, and cyber liability insurance

Include: Policy invoices and annual totals.

□ Accounting and legal fees

Include: Invoices and proof of payment for professional fees paid in 2025.

□ Business banking fees, transfer fees, and currency conversion fees

Watch for: FX conversion fees hidden in bank transactions. Wire transfer fees and Wise fees are deductible if documented.

□ Platform fees and marketplace commissions

Upwork, Fiverr, and other platform commissions

Watch for: Platform fees embedded in payout summaries rather than issued as separate invoices.

□ Payment processing fees

Stripe, PayPal, Wise

Pull from processor reports. These are not always captured in bookkeeping.

□ Advertising, marketing, and lead generation costs

Include: Receipts for ads, sponsorships, portfolio promotion, and lead-generation tools.

□ Business travel expenses

Flights, hotels, taxis and rideshare, transit – business travel only, separate from vehicle expenses claimed in Section 03.

□ Meals and entertainment (business-related only)

Include: Receipt, business purpose, and attendee names.

Deductible portion is generally 50% of the lesser of the amount incurred and a reasonable amount under the circumstances, subject to limited exceptions (e.g., amounts fully billable to a client or incurred at a special remote work site). Do not claim the full cost.

□ Professional development – courses, certifications, exam fees, conferences

Keep receipts and a short note on business relevance for each item.

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05. People and Payments

This section covers amounts paid to or on behalf of people – subcontractors you hired and health coverage you paid for yourself and your family. Each has specific rules that determine how it is treated and how much can be claimed.

□ Subcontractor payments (if you hired others in 2025)

Include: Invoices, payment proof, who was paid, and type of work performed.

T4A reporting obligations for contract payments (generally reported in box 048) may apply to certain service payments made to Canadian resident recipients. Under CRA administrative policy, a slip is generally required if total payments exceed $500 in the calendar year or if tax was withheld. Review payer obligations before filing.

□ Private Health Services Plan (PHSP) premiums (if applicable)

Health and dental insurance plans for yourself, your spouse or common-law partner, and household members, paid through an eligible PHSP provider.

Include: Annual premium total and name of the plan provider.

Deduction is subject to CRA annual per-person limits and income-based restrictions. The plan must be through a qualifying insurance company, trust, or professional organization. The same premium cannot also be claimed as a personal medical expense.

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06. Year-End Position

Self-employed IT contractors reporting business income on Form T2125 generally use the accrual method of accounting under CRA rules. Under accrual accounting, income is reported when earned and expenses when incurred, regardless of when cash changes hands. These items capture what was open at December 31 and will not be visible from your bank account alone.

□ Year-end accounts payable (business expenses incurred but unpaid as of December 31, 2025)

Examples: A subcontractor invoice received in December but paid in January, a software renewal billed in late December, a legal or accounting invoice outstanding at year-end.

Under accrual accounting, an expense is deductible in the year it is incurred. If a legitimate business expense is owed at December 31 and supported by an invoice or agreement, the deduction belongs in 2025 regardless of when payment is made.

□ Sale or disposal of business assets in 2025 (if applicable)

Include: Date of disposition, proceeds received, original purchase date, and original cost.

May trigger recapture of CCA previously claimed, or a terminal loss, depending on the proceeds and the remaining undepreciated capital cost of the class.

□ Bad debts (if applicable)

If an invoice was included in income in a prior year and became genuinely uncollectible, it may be deductible. Requires documentation and review.

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07. Prior Year and Planning

These items do not affect every client, but when relevant, they can significantly affect the return. The RRSP deadline is a hard date – do not miss it.

□ 2024 Notice of Assessment, and prior-year return copy if available

Confirms carry-forward amounts, unused RRSP room, and any outstanding balances with CRA.

□ Prior-year CCA schedule showing UCC balances by class (if available)

Required if you previously claimed CCA on hardware, equipment, or other depreciable assets. The undepreciated capital cost (UCC) balance by class from last year is the starting point for this year’s calculation.

□ RRSP contribution receipts, for the applicable window

Include receipts that fall within the contribution window for the 2025 return.

The 2025 RRSP contribution deadline is March 2, 2026. Contributions made between January 1 and March 2, 2026, fall within the 2025 RRSP contribution window and must be reported for the 2025 filing cycle (Schedule 7), whether or not they are deducted for 2025.

Time-sensitive: March 2, 2026 deadline

□ FHSA contribution receipts (if applicable)

Can affect tax planning in high-income contractor years.

□ CRA instalment reminders and instalment payment confirmations (if applicable)

Missed or underpaid instalments result in CRA interest charges that are not deductible.

□ Prior-year GST/HST notices, assessments, or adjustments (if applicable)

Carryover or filing mismatch issues can affect the current year return.

□ Access to CRA My Account and My Business Account (if GST/HST registered)

Confirms instalment balances, outstanding correspondence, GST/HST account status, and carry-forward amounts. Review before filing.

□ Foreign property reporting (T1135) – flag if applicable

Applies if the cost of specified foreign property exceeded $100,000 CAD at any time during 2025. This includes foreign investment accounts, foreign shares held outside a registered plan, and certain foreign receivables.

T1135 is a separate filing obligation from the T1 return, but it is generally due on or before the due date of your income tax return, even if no income tax return would otherwise be required. Penalties for non-compliance apply. Relevant for IT contractors with international investments or significant foreign-denominated assets.

□ Any CRA letters related to your 2025 taxes

Review letters, reassessments, requests for information, instalment reminders.

These can change what must be filed or explained. Provide all of them without filtering.

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08. Digital Records and Audit Protection

CRA audits and review requests can arrive two to four years after filing. The records you gather now may need to be produced in 2027 or 2028. IT contractors generate most of their documentation digitally: billing exports, SaaS receipts, cloud invoices, platform summaries. But digital records are fragile in ways that are easy to overlook. Accounts get deactivated, vendors change their billing portals, and annual summaries become unavailable after a certain period. This section protects the deductions you have claimed and reduces the risk of disallowance if CRA asks questions later.

□ Annual billing summaries downloaded from all cloud and SaaS providers

AWS, Azure, GCP, DigitalOcean, Vercel, GitHub, JetBrains, OpenAI, Anthropic, and any other platform where you have a paid subscription or usage-based account.

Download: Annual billing summary or year-end statement in PDF format, plus a transaction-level CSV export if available.

Many cloud and SaaS platforms make annual billing summaries available for a limited time only, typically 12 to 24 months. Once the window passes, detailed records may no longer be accessible, even with account access. Do not rely on being able to retrieve these later. Download and store them now, organized by provider and tax year. A bank statement showing a charge to “Amazon Web Services” is not sufficient support for a CRA review of a $6,000 annual cloud expense.

□ Platform payout and fee records saved before account changes or closures

Upwork, Fiverr, Toptal, Deel, Malt, and any other platform where you earned income or paid fees in 2025.

Download: Annual earnings summary, fee breakdown, and any platform-issued tax information statement. Export in PDF or CSV before the end of the tax filing window.

Platform account records can become inaccessible after account closure, inactivity, or platform policy changes. If you wound down a platform relationship in 2025 or plan to in 2026, retrieve all 2025 records before closing the account. Records cannot be retrieved retroactively after account deletion.

□ Payment processor annual reports and transaction exports saved

Stripe, PayPal, Wise, Revolut Business

Download: Year-end summary statement or full transaction export for 2025. For Wise and similar multi-currency accounts, download the statement in both the original currency and CAD-converted views if available.

Processor records are the primary audit support for FX conversion fees, processing fees, and the timing of foreign currency receipts. The transaction-level export is significantly more useful than a monthly bank statement for reconciling income and fees separately. Store these alongside your bank statements in a dedicated 2025 tax folder.

□ Crypto transaction records exported and preserved (if applicable)

Applies if you received payment in cryptocurrency, sold or disposed of crypto assets, or earned income from staking, mining, or yield farming in 2025.

Export: Full transaction history from all wallets and exchanges used in 2025, including wallet addresses, transaction hashes, timestamps, amounts in original currency, and CAD fair market value at each transaction date. Use a dedicated crypto tax tool or export directly from the exchange.

Crypto exchanges change ownership, restrict access, or exit the market without notice. Transaction history is frequently unavailable after account closure. CRA expects a complete and traceable record for every taxable crypto event. A screenshot of your portfolio balance does not satisfy this requirement. Export and store complete transaction records now, regardless of whether you plan to continue using the platform.

□ Invoice records backed up outside your invoicing tool

Export a PDF copy of every 2025 invoice issued, plus a full invoice list export (CSV or equivalent) from your invoicing software.

If your invoicing tool is a SaaS platform (FreshBooks, Wave, Harvest, Invoice Ninja, or similar), your invoice history exists only as long as your account does. A lapsed subscription or a platform shutdown removes your primary income documentation. Store a complete offline backup of all 2025 invoices in a cloud folder you control, separate from the invoicing platform itself.

□ Contract and SOW copies stored with the relevant tax year records

Signed copies of all client contracts, statements of work, and engagement letters active in 2025.

Contracts support your GST/HST treatment (especially zero-rating for non-resident clients), confirm the nature of the services provided, and establish that you were operating as an independent contractor rather than an employee. Store signed copies in your 2025 records folder even if the engagement started in a prior year. Contracts managed through DocuSign or similar platforms should be downloaded as PDFs and stored outside the platform.

□ Business-use evidence for AI and API tools retained

For AI and API expenses claimed as a business deduction (OpenAI, Anthropic, Google AI, Hugging Face, vector database tooling, and similar), retain documentation that separates client work from personal experimentation.

Examples: Project notes, commit history, client deliverables, deployment logs, or a short written record noting which client engagement each usage period relates to.

AI API costs are a legitimate and significant business expense for many IT contractors, but they are also a category CRA has not yet developed detailed audit guidance on. The deductible portion is the business-use portion only. If your usage spans client work and personal projects, a record distinguishing the two is the primary protection for this deduction. A usage export from the provider showing total spend is not sufficient on its own. You need something that establishes the business connection for each billing period.

□ Records organized and stored in a dedicated 2025 tax folder

Organize all 2025 tax records into a single cloud folder with subfolders by category: income, GST/HST, shared expenses, direct expenses, year-end position, prior year. Store a local backup copy.

CRA review requests typically give 30 days to produce documentation. A well-organized folder reduces that exercise from several weeks of archaeology to a single export. The folder structure should mirror the sections of this checklist so records can be located and produced by category without searching across multiple tools, platforms, and email threads.

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