Can You Still Object If You Never Received A CRA Reassessment? A Canadian Tax Lawyer’s Analysis Of Estate Of Ducharme v. The King

Overview: When a CRA Reassessment You Never Received Can Still Affect Your Objection Rights

A taxpayer who does not receive a Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) Notice of Assessment or Reassessment may assume that the deadline to object has not started. The law is more nuanced. The critical question is often not whether the taxpayer actually received the notice, but whether the CRA can prove that it was properly mailed or otherwise sent in accordance with the Income Tax Act.

That issue was central in The Estate of the Late Troy E. Ducharme v. The King, 2026 TCC 150 (Ducharme). The CRA maintained that two penalty reassessments had been mailed to the Estate on March 17, 2023. The Estate said that neither its trustee nor its tax advisor became aware of those CRA tax reassessments until 2025, when the CRA raised them during a telephone call. The disputed tax reassessments imposed penalties totaling approximately $15.8 million.

The timing mattered because a valid Notice of Objection is generally a prerequisite to appealing a CRA assessment to the Tax Court of Canada. If the tax reassessments had actually been mailed in March 2023, the Estate would have missed both the ordinary objection deadline and the extended period for seeking additional time. If they were not mailed until 2025, however, the Estate’s April 2025 Notices of Objection could still be valid.

The Tax Court dismissed the CRA’s motion to quash the appeal. The Court concluded that the CRA had not established, on a balance of probabilities, that the particular penalty reassessments had been mailed before March 3, 2025. Although the CRA produced extensive evidence describing its internal printing and mailing procedures, its records established that the notices had been printed but did not sufficiently connect those specific reassessments to an actual mailing event. The Court also refused to treat an affidavit stating that the notices had been “issued” as satisfying the statutory requirement to establish that they had been “mailed.”

“Taxpayers should not assume that simply saying a CRA reassessment was never received will preserve their objection rights. But where there is a genuine dispute about whether the CRA actually mailed the reassessment, the CRA’s evidence of mailing can become decisive, particularly where important objection and appeal deadlines depend on that date,” says David J. Rotfleisch, founding tax lawyer and CPA at Rotfleisch & Samulovitch, and a Law Society of Ontario Certified Specialist in Taxation.

Ducharme is important because it illustrates the distinction between non-receipt and non-mailing. Once mailing is established, the Income Tax Act contains presumptions that can make actual receipt irrelevant. But where mailing itself is credibly disputed, the CRA may be required to prove that the specific notice was properly mailed. The case therefore has practical significance for taxpayers facing late objections, disputed tax reassessment dates, missing CRA correspondence, or challenges to Tax Court appeal rights.

If the CRA says that a tax assessment or reassessment was mailed long before you became aware of it, consulting an experienced Canadian tax lawyer can help determine whether the mailing can be challenged, whether objection rights remain available, and what procedural steps should be taken before a statutory deadline expires.

What Happened in Ducharme? The CRA’s $15.8 Million Penalty Reassessments and Motion to Quash

Ducharme arose from two CRA tax reassessments imposing penalties on the Estate of the late Troy E. Ducharme for alleged failures relating to Forms T1134 and T1135 for the 2014 taxation year. The two penalty reassessments, dated March 17, 2023, totalled approximately $15.8 million.

The Estate maintained that neither its trustee nor its tax advisor received or became aware of those penalty reassessments in 2023. According to the evidence, the Estate first learned of them in January 2025 during a telephone call with the CRA. Copies were subsequently mailed to the Estate, accompanied by a letter dated March 3, 2025, and the trustee received them on March 11, 2025. The Estate filed Notices of Objection on April 24, 2025.

The CRA then brought a motion to quash the Estate’s Tax Court appeal. A motion to quash asks the Court to terminate an appeal without deciding the underlying tax merits because a required procedural condition for bringing the appeal has not been satisfied. Here, the CRA argued that the Estate had failed to file valid Notices of Objection within the statutory deadlines and therefore had not satisfied the prerequisite for appealing the CRA tax reassessments to the Tax Court.

The entire motion, therefore, turned on one factual question: when were the penalty reassessments actually mailed? The CRA argued that they were mailed on March 17, 2023, the date appearing on the notices. If that position were correct, the Estate had missed both the ordinary objection period and the additional period for seeking an extension of time. The Estate argued that the reassessments were not mailed until March 2025, making its April 2025 objections timely.

Why Does the Mailing Date of a CRA Tax Assessment or Reassessment Matter?

The Income Tax Act imposes strict deadlines for challenging a CRA tax assessment or tax reassessment. A CRA tax audit may result in a new tax assessment or reassessment, and the taxpayer’s ability to dispute that result can depend on when the CRA sends the applicable Notice of Assessment or Notice of Reassessment. The mailing date can therefore determine whether the taxpayer still has access to the CRA objection process and, ultimately, a Tax Court appeal.

Under subsection 165(1) of the Income Tax Act, the deadline for filing a CRA Notice of Objection depends on the taxpayer and the type of CRA tax assessment involved. For an individual other than a trust or a graduated rate estate, in respect of assessments covered by paragraph 165(1)(a), the deadline is the later of one year after the applicable filing-due date and 90 days after the notice is sent. In other cases, the ordinary deadline is 90 days from the date the notice is sent.

Missing the ordinary objection deadline does not always end the tax dispute. Section 166.1 allows a taxpayer to apply to the CRA for an extension of time to object, but the application must be made within one year after the original objection deadline expires, and the taxpayer must satisfy the additional statutory conditions. Once that additional one-year period is missed, the CRA cannot grant an extension under section 166.1.

The consequences can be significant because a valid Notice of Objection is ordinarily a prerequisite to appealing a CRA tax assessment or tax reassessment to the Tax Court of Canada. Under subsection 169(1), a taxpayer who has objected may appeal after the CRA confirms the assessment or reassesses, or after 90 days have elapsed without the CRA disposing of the objection. If the taxpayer never serves a valid Notice of Objection and can no longer obtain an extension, the taxpayer may lose the statutory route for continuing the tax dispute before the Tax Court.

The mailing date also interacts with several statutory presumptions under the Income Tax Act, and the sequence matters. Subsection 244(14) provides that where a Notice of Assessment or Notice of Reassessment is established to have been mailed or sent electronically, it is presumed to have been mailed or sent on the date appearing on the notice, subject to rebuttal. Paragraph 248(7)(a) generally deems a document sent by first-class mail or its equivalent to have been received on the day it was mailed.

Subsection 244(15) separately provides that an assessment is deemed to have been made on the day the notice of assessment is sent. These rules become powerful once the legally effective sending has been established; they do not eliminate the threshold question of whether the particular notice was actually sent in the first place. The same mailing date also anchors the start of the CRA’s own ordinary reassessment period under subsection 152(3.1), which is a separate consequence from the objection-deadline issue at the centre of this article.

That distinction explains why Ducharme was not simply a dispute about lost mail. The Estate challenged whether the particular CRA tax reassessments imposing the penalties had actually been mailed in 2023. If the CRA had established the earlier mailing date, the Estate would have missed the applicable objection and extension periods. If the reassessments were not mailed until 2025, however, the Estate’s April 2025 Notices of Objection were timely. The mailing date therefore determined whether the Estate could continue its tax dispute.

The statutory regime makes the distinction between not receiving a CRA tax reassessment and the CRA not mailing the reassessment critically important. Non-receipt alone does not necessarily preserve objection rights. But where mailing itself is credibly disputed, the CRA may be required to establish that the particular Notice of Assessment or Notice of Reassessment was actually mailed before the relevant tax-dispute deadlines can be determined.

What Happens If the CRA Cannot Prove It Mailed Your Tax Reassessment?

The Tax Court dismissed the CRA’s motion to quash the Estate’s appeal concluding that, on a balance of probabilities, the CRA had not proven that the two penalty reassessments were mailed to the Estate on March 17, 2023, as the CRA alleged.

The CRA was able to show that the notices had been printed and produced detailed evidence describing its ordinary printing, control and mailing procedures. However, the evidence did not sufficiently connect those particular reassessments to an actual mailing event in 2023. The CRA could not produce the specific batch headers that would have tracked the notices beyond the printing stage, and the Court found no direct evidence linking the penalty reassessments to mailing by Canada Post.

The Court also rejected the CRA’s attempt to rely on subsection 244(10) of the Income Tax Act. The affidavit relied on by the CRA stated that the notices had been “issued,” but subsection 244(10) requires evidence that the notices were “mailed” or otherwise communicated. The Tax Court was not prepared to treat “issued” as equivalent to “mailed.” That meant the CRA could not rely on the statutory evidentiary shortcut in subsection 244(10) and instead had to prove mailing on the balance of probabilities.

Subsection 244(10) gives the CRA an evidentiary shortcut when the statutory requirements are met. In general terms, an appropriate CRA officer can provide affidavit evidence based on the CRA’s records and mailing practices to establish that a particular notice was mailed on a stated day. This inquiry is often referred to as the Mpamugo test, after Mpamugo v. The Queen, the same framework our Shaker and Siam commentaries apply: the taxpayer must first credibly assert that the notice was not properly mailed before the burden shifts to the CRA to prove mailing to the correct address on a balance of probabilities. Ducharme shows, however, that the wording and documentary chain still matter. The Court was not prepared to treat an affidavit saying that the notices had been “issued” as proof that they had been “mailed,” and the surrounding records did not cure that missing link.

“The important lesson from Ducharme is that evidence of a CRA process is not necessarily evidence that a particular tax reassessment actually moved through that process. The CRA may be able to show that a notice was generated and printed, and that it included detailed procedures describing what ordinarily happens next, but where the mailing date determines whether a taxpayer has lost objection rights, the evidentiary chain still has to connect that specific notice to the alleged mailing. The distinction between a reassessment being ‘issued’ and being ‘mailed’ may sound technical, but in a case like this, it can determine whether the taxpayer gets into Tax Court at all,” says David J. Rotfleisch.

By contrast, the Estate presented unchallenged evidence from its trustee and its tax advisor showing that they did not become aware of the approximately $15.8 million in penalty reassessments until 2025. The evidence also showed that they had dealt promptly with other CRA tax reassessments in 2023 and acted quickly once the disputed penalty reassessments came to light. The Court found that this evidence supported the conclusion that the notices had not been mailed before March 3, 2025.

As a result, the Estate’s April 24, 2025 Notices of Objection were timely, the CRA’s motion to quash was dismissed, and the Estate’s tax appeal was permitted to continue. The Court did not decide whether the underlying penalties were correct. It decided only that the Estate had preserved its procedural right to continue disputing those CRA tax reassessments.

The practical significance is important: if the CRA cannot establish that a particular Notice of Assessment or Notice of Reassessment was actually mailed, the objection deadline may not begin to run from the date appearing on the notice. That does not mean that non-receipt alone is enough. The issue is whether the CRA can prove the mailing was legally effective when the mailing is genuinely disputed.

How Does Ducharme Compare with Shaker, Siam, Sodecia and Ng?

Ducharme should be read with other recent mailing cases rather than as a general rule that non-receipt defeats a CRA reassessment. In Shaker v. The King, 2026 TCC 63 (Shaker), the taxpayer succeeded because the CRA mailed tax reassessments to an incomplete and undeliverable address even though it had consistently used a more complete version of the same address. The case shows that the issue may be not only whether something was mailed, but whether it was mailed to the address the CRA properly had on file.

In Siam v. Canada, 2026 FCA 91, the Federal Court of Appeal (Siam) upheld the rejection of the taxpayer’s mailing challenge where the taxpayer’s evidence was not found credible. Siam therefore illustrates the importance of putting non-mailing genuinely in issue with credible evidence; it does not eliminate the CRA’s evidentiary burden at Step 2 once mailing has properly been put in dispute.

Sodecia Canada Investments Inc. v. Canada, 2024 FCA 216 (Sodecia) illustrates the opposite evidentiary result from Ducharme. There, CRA affidavits, system records, and evidence explaining the preparation and mailing process were sufficient to establish that the assessment had been mailed on the date shown. The Federal Court of Appeal confirmed that subsection 244(10) does not require a CRA witness to have personal knowledge of the individual envelope; evidence of the relevant records, systems and mailing procedures can be enough.

Ng v. The King, 2025 TCC 172 (Ng) rounds out the spectrum under the GST/HST mailing rules in the Excise Tax Act, which mirror the Income Tax Act mailing rules discussed above. The CRA mailed a Notice of Reassessment to the address the taxpayer had provided on a GST/HST New Housing Rebate application. The taxpayer had since moved, and by the time she learned of the reassessment years later, both the ordinary objection period and the one-year extension period had expired.

The Tax Court held that the reassessment was validly sent to the taxpayer’s last-known address on file and that actual receipt was not required once proper mailing was established, leaving the taxpayer with no route to object. Ng is a reminder that keeping an address current with the CRA is itself part of protecting objection rights, and that the same mailing-proof principles apply whether the underlying dispute is income tax or GST/HST.

Together, these cases create a practical spectrum. Shaker addresses an improper address, Siam stresses the taxpayer’s threshold evidentiary burden, Sodecia shows what adequate CRA proof of mailing can look like, Ng shows the same rules at work under the GST/HST regime, and Ducharme shows that evidence of printing or general procedures may still be insufficient where the CRA cannot connect the specific tax reassessment to an actual mailing event.

The table below summarizes how each case fits into that spectrum.

What If the CRA Reassessment Was Sent Electronically Instead of by Mail?

Electronic notices require a separate analysis. Subsection 244(14.1) contains a deemed-sending and deemed-receipt rule for certain electronic communications to individuals when the statutory conditions are met, while subsection 244(14.2) contains a separate rule for communications that refer to a business number and are posted in the taxpayer’s secure business account. Depending on the type of taxpayer and notice, other provisions, including subsection 150.1(4.1), may also be relevant.

The practical consequence is that a taxpayer who never opened the CRA message, missed an email notification, or did not regularly check a secure CRA account may not be in the same position as a taxpayer disputing whether a paper reassessment was mailed at all. The correct question is always which statutory sending rule applies to the particular notice and whether the CRA can establish compliance with that rule. See our detailed discussion of missed CRA email notifications and late objections.

Practical Implications: What Should You Do If a CRA Reassessment Appears Years Late?

Act immediately. If a previously unknown CRA assessment or reassessment appears in My Account, My Business Account, Represent a Client, a statement of account, or a CRA telephone call, record the date you first became aware of it and obtain a complete copy of the notice and any accompanying correspondence.

Preserve the evidence. Keep envelopes, cover letters, portal screenshots, email notifications, correspondence logs, call notes, address-change records, representative authorizations, and any earlier CRA letters showing which address or electronic account the Agency was using. In a mailing dispute, small pieces of contemporaneous evidence can become critical years later.

Do not rely on non-receipt alone. A taxpayer should identify whether the real issue is no mailing, mailing to the wrong address, electronic posting, or simply failure to see a notice that was legally sent. Those are different legal problems and can produce different outcomes under the Income Tax Act.

Protect objection rights in parallel. If there is any plausible route to file a Notice of Objection or an extension application within the statutory window, consider doing so while the mailing issue is investigated. A mailing challenge should not become a reason to let another available deadline expire.

Takeaway

Ask what evidence supports the CRA date. Where the CRA relies on an old mailing date, the evidentiary record may include system entries, batch or control records, mailing-center records, affidavits explaining CRA procedures, and address-history information. Ducharme demonstrates that the existence of a printed notice is not necessarily the same thing as proof that the particular notice was mailed.

Pro Tax Tips: Preserve the Deadline Before Litigating the Mailing

The safest approach is to treat every newly discovered CRA reassessment as potentially deadline-sensitive. Review the notice date, the method by which CRA says it was sent, the taxpayer’s address and electronic-mail settings at the relevant time, and whether an objection or extension application can still be filed.

Taxpayers and representatives should also maintain a complete CRA correspondence file rather than relying on the Agency to reconstruct the history later. Where a reassessment carries a material liability, download or save the notice, preserve proof of when it became available, and keep any envelope or covering letter. If the notice is electronic, preserve the secure-account posting information and the related notification record.

“A missing CRA notice is not a strategy; it is an evidence problem. The practical objective is to preserve every available deadline, document when the taxpayer actually learned of the reassessment, and then test whether the CRA can prove the legally effective sending on which it relies. Waiting for the mailing dispute to resolve itself can turn a defensible procedural issue into a lost objection right,” says David J. Rotfleisch.

Where the amount at stake is significant, or the CRA is relying on an old reassessment date, an experienced Canadian tax litigation lawyer can assess the statutory sending rules, the available evidence, the objection and extension deadlines, and whether the CRA has a proper basis to argue that the Tax Court lacks jurisdiction.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) – About Missing CRA Reassessments and Objection Deadlines

id="is-saying-that-i-never-received-a-cra-reassessment-enough")Is saying that I never received a CRA reassessment enough to keep my objection rights open?

No. Non-receipt and non-sending are different issues. If the CRA proves that a paper notice was properly mailed, statutory presumptions can make actual receipt irrelevant. The taxpayer needs to identify and support the specific problem with the alleged sending, such as no mailing, an incorrect address, or failure to satisfy the applicable electronic-notice rule.

What evidence can the CRA use to prove that a reassessment was mailed?

The CRA may rely on affidavit evidence from an officer responsible for the relevant records, together with system records, mailing procedures, batch or control information, and other documents connecting the particular notice to the mailing process. Sodecia confirms that personal knowledge of the individual envelope is not required, but Ducharme shows that the evidentiary chain must still establish the relevant mailing on a balance of probabilities.

What happens if the CRA mailed the reassessment to the wrong address?

The result depends on the facts, including whether the notice was mailed to the address the CRA properly had on file and whether the address problem was attributable to the taxpayer. In Shaker, the taxpayer succeeded where the CRA mailed the reassessments to an incomplete, undeliverable address even though it had consistently used a more complete version of the same address.

What if the CRA posted the reassessment electronically and I never saw it?

Electronic notices are governed by separate statutory rules. Depending on the taxpayer and notice, the Income Tax Act may deem an electronic notice to be sent and received when it is posted or when the required electronic notification is sent. Simply overlooking an email or failing to check a CRA secure account may therefore produce a different result from a case in which paper mailing itself cannot be proved.

How long do I normally have to object to a CRA assessment or reassessment?

Under subsection 165(1) of the Income Tax Act, an individual other than a trust or a graduated rate estate for the year generally has until the later of one year after the filing-due date and 90 days after the notice is sent. In other cases, the ordinary objection period is generally 90 days from the date of sending. The taxpayer and type of assessment must be identified before calculating the deadline.

Can I obtain an extension if I missed the ordinary Notice of Objection deadline?

Potentially. Section 166.1 of the Income Tax Act allows an application to the CRA for an extension, but the application must be made within one year after the ordinary objection period expires, and the taxpayer must satisfy the additional statutory conditions. That outer one-year limit is critical and cannot be treated as an open-ended fairness remedy.

Did Ducharme cancel the $15.8 million of penalties?

No. The Tax Court decided a procedural motion. It held that the CRA had not proved the alleged 2023 mailing date and therefore dismissed the motion to quash, allowing the Estate’s appeal to continue. The Court did not decide whether the underlying T1134 and T1135 penalties were ultimately correct.

What should I do if I discover an old CRA reassessment that I never knew about?

Obtain the notice immediately, record when and how you discovered it, preserve all mailing or electronic evidence, review the taxpayer’s address and CRA-account history, and determine whether a Notice of Objection or extension application can still be filed. Where the deadline or method of sending is disputed, an experienced Canadian tax litigation lawyer can help assess whether the CRA has proved a legally effective sending and what procedural route remains available.

Is the date printed on a CRA Notice of Reassessment enough to prove when it was mailed?

No. The date appearing on the notice can become important once the CRA establishes that the particular notice was actually mailed or otherwise legally sent. In Ducharme, evidence that the reassessments had been generated or printed was not enough because the CRA could not sufficiently connect those specific notices to an actual mailing event. The statutory presumptions do not eliminate the threshold requirement to establish legally effective sending.

What if I acted immediately after first learning about an old CRA reassessment?

Prompt action can be important evidence, but it does not automatically determine whether an objection is timely. In Ducharme, the Estate acted quickly after learning of the disputed reassessments in 2025, which supported its position that it had not previously been aware of them. A taxpayer who discovers an old reassessment should immediately obtain the notice, preserve evidence of when it was discovered, and determine whether a Notice of Objection or extension application should be filed.

Can I appeal directly to the Tax Court if I never filed a valid Notice of Objection?

Generally, no. Under the ordinary income-tax appeal process, a valid Notice of Objection is normally a prerequisite to appealing a tax assessment or reassessment to the Tax Court of Canada. That is why the mailing issue in Ducharme was so important: if the Estate’s objections had been out of time and no extension remained available, its Tax Court appeal could have been quashed without the Court ever considering whether the underlying penalties were correct.

The content of this article is intended to provide a general guide to the subject matter. Specialist advice should be sought about your specific circumstances.