Alright, today is not April 30. But you may be living precariously if you have not filed your 2009 tax return or plan to get it filed before the April 30 deadline. You will be charged a late-filing penalty if you owe taxes and you late-file.

I don't mean to scare you so let's look at the good news first. There is no late-filing penalty if you do not owe taxes on your 2009 return. The late-filing penalty applies to taxes owing; therefore the penalty does not apply if you have a refund,

Nonetheless, you should file your 2009 tax return on time to avoid other potential tax traps. For example, do you own foreign property with a cost greater than $100,000 (Google 'T1135' or read TaxBreak, April 5, 2010)? If you do, you must file an additional Form T1135 or face a different late-filing penalty of $25 per day. Hence if you do late-file your 2009 tax return (that has a refund) and the Form T1135 on, say, June 30, your tax-return late-filing penalty will be zero but your Form T1135 late-filing penalty will be an excruciating $1,525 ($25 x 61 days).

Still unconvinced you need to file your tax return on time? There is an automatic 5 per cent penalty on the taxes owing if you file your tax return late. For example, if you file your 2009 return on May 1 and owe $3,000; the late-filing penalty is $150 ($3,000 x 5 per cent). A 5 per cent penalty is cheap but that's just the warm up. The penalty grows by 1 per cent for each additional month you are late. The penalty is 6 per cent if you file in June and 12 per cent by December. It tops out at 17 per cent even if you late-file beyond the twelve months period.

And it gets worse.

The penalty is very severe if you are a serial late-filer, which simply means you have paid a late-filing penalty in any of the previous three tax years (2006-2008 tax returns). This super penalty is an automatic 10 per cent plus 2 per cent per month, to a maximum of 20 months or up to 50 per cent of taxes owing.

The Canada Revenue Agency does go out of its way to help the repeat offenders avoid this super penalty. The agency will send out three notifications to ask you to file your late-return. Ignore them all and you'll have no one else to blame if you are assessed this punitive penalty when you do file and you owe taxes.

Paying a late-filing penalty is just part of your costly procrastination. You will also be charged interest on both the taxes owing and the penalty. Hint: I have dealt with situations where the interest and late-filing penalty exceeded the taxes owing.

The April 30 deadline doesn't apply to everyone. If you or your spouse report self-employment income from a partnership or proprietorship, the filing deadline is extended to June 15 for both of you. Your return does not have to be received by the CRA by April 30 in order to meet the deadline. It just has to be received at the post office by April 30. An EFILE return has to be transmitted by midnight of April 30 to be considered filed on time.