Does CRA have the right to access your electronic files?
Such as QuickBooks and Simply Accounting Files.
The quick answer is yes they do have the rights to those files. However this brings up a big problem being that one can not separate the files by year. CRA says they have a way, yet QuickBooks informs us that they don’t know of a way how to do this.
Our recommendation is to export the files to a cv file, and give CRA those files they are entitled to see. Files more than 3 years old are normally statute barred and it is fool hardy to give CRA access to anything they are not justified in asking for.
CRA will take your electronic data and use their powerful computers to do data mining with it.
If CRA is claiming you are grossly negligent, the onus on CRA is to prove it too you or your representative.
Our new software, ARBooks, audit ready software solves this problem as you can separate information any way you want to including by date.
If you are being audited and CRA is demanding your electronic files, you should let us know about this and we will give you some guidance. What is the overview here?