The CAF Member's Tax Guide
Service Life on a T1
Military Life Shows Up
on Your Tax Return
Postings, deployments, allowances, and eventually release: each one changes what your return should look like. This guide covers the big items, written by a practice founded by a 16-year CAF veteran. It's general information, not advice for your specific file; when we prepare your return, we confirm each item against your actual documents.
Postings & Moving Expenses
A posting message moves your whole household, and some of the cost can matter at tax time. Where a move brings you at least 40 kilometres closer to your new place of duty, eligible moving expenses that weren't reimbursed can generally be claimed on Form T1-M against income earned at the new location.
The key word is reimbursed. Costs covered by the relocation program can't be claimed again, but out-of-pocket amounts that fall outside your funded envelope are worth a careful look. The claim lives or dies on records, so keep your posting message and every receipt from the move. Our guide to a posting year at tax time sorts the reimbursed costs from the deductible ones, and covers what the move does to the rest of the household's return.
Not sure what's claimable from your last move? That's exactly the kind of question we answer at intake, so ask us, it costs nothing.
Deployment Income
Income earned while deployed on a designated international operation qualifies for a deduction, and it shows up in box 43 of your T4 and is claimed on line 24400 of your return. There's nothing to apply for, but there is something to verify: that the amount actually made it onto the return, and that it's right when you have more than one T4 in a deployment year.
A deployment year rarely looks like a normal year: allowances, a spouse's income shifting at home, childcare arrangements changing. We treat a deployment-year return as its own kind of file, because it is one.
Filing From Anywhere
CRA deadlines don't deploy with you. The good news: your return doesn't need you in the country. We work entirely by video, phone, and secure document upload, and with your signed authorization we can deal with the CRA directly on your behalf, so a review letter arriving mid-tour doesn't sit unanswered.
Posted anywhere in Canada, deployed anywhere else: the process and the fixed fee are the same.
The Release Year
The year you release is usually the most complicated return of your career: salary for part of the year, severance or accumulated leave paid out, a pension starting, sometimes VAC benefits beginning: several slips, several withholding rates, and a combined income they weren't calculated against.
Our release-year guide takes those payments one at a time: the severance, the pension options, and the withholding gap. What's taxable and what isn't matters most here, and our veterans' benefits guide breaks it down. If you'd rather just hand the whole year to someone who's been through the process, the service appreciation rate applies: 15% off, stacking with the spousal discount.
Before You File
Four Quick Checks
Box 43 on your T4
If you deployed on a designated operation, confirm the deployment amount appears in box 43, and that it was actually deducted on line 24400.
T1-M for a posting move
Moved on posting this year? Check whether unreimbursed moving costs qualify before the receipts disappear into a box in the garage.
Household credits after a move
When a posting interrupts a spouse's income, spousal and family credits often change. A relocation year deserves a fresh look at the whole household return.
What to bring
Slips, receipts, and records by situation: the What to Bring checklist covers it, posting message included.
Common Questions
Three Things People Ask
Can I claim moving expenses for a posting?
Where the move brings you at least 40 kilometres closer to your new place of duty, eligible moving expenses that were not reimbursed can generally be claimed on Form T1-M against income earned at the new location. Costs covered by the relocation program cannot be claimed again, so keep your posting message and every receipt from the move.
Is income earned on a deployment taxable?
Income earned while deployed on a designated international operation qualifies for a deduction. It shows up in box 43 of your T4 and is claimed on line 24400 of your return. There is nothing to apply for, but it is worth confirming that the amount actually made it onto the return, especially if you had more than one T4 in a deployment year.
Can you prepare my return while I am deployed?
Yes. Your return does not need you in the country. We work entirely by video, phone and secure document upload, and with your signed authorization we can deal with the CRA directly on your behalf, so a review letter arriving mid-tour does not sit unanswered. The process and the fixed fee are the same wherever you are posted or deployed.
Sources: CRA, Line 24400 – Canadian Armed Forces personnel and police deduction · CRA, Line 21900 – Moving expenses · CRA, T1-M Moving Expenses Deduction
Keep Reading
Related guides and tools
CAF Release Year
Your CAF release year at tax time: severance as a retiring allowance, the transfer value, pension splitting before 65, and why each payer under-withholds.
Read the guide →A Posting Year at Tax Time
What a CAF posting costs at tax time: which moving costs the T1-M takes, which relocation benefits are taxed, and how a spouse's lost income moves credits.
Read the guide →Veterans' Benefits & Tax
Which VAC and CAF benefits are taxable in Canada and which are not: your CAF pension, the Income Replacement Benefit, and Pain and Suffering Compensation.
Read the guide →