Prince George, B.C. – The Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) is providing a last-minute reminder as we approach the deadline to file your taxes at midnight tonight.

“We have a lot of options for people so there’s no need to panic,” says Shannon Ker, CRA spokesperson. “If you’d like to file online we offer free software at www.cra.gc.ca/netfile.”

Once you’ve filed, she says it won’t take long to find out the result of your assessment.

“One of the new items we’re offering this year is an express notice of assessment. So, if you file online, you would actually be able to look at your notice of assessment the next business day.”

She says you can register to file online by creating a My Account file by going to cra.gc.ca/myaccount.

Ker says those who fail to file their taxes on time will be penalized.

“There is a late filing penalty of five per cent that is applied to your outstanding balance. There is interest applied to any outstanding balance,” she says.

“However, if you have an outstanding balance that starts to accumulate month over month, then 1 per cent interest is applied to the outstanding balance each month for a maximum of 12 months.”

As of Friday April 28, Ker says 18 million returns had been filed and of those 18 million returns, 89 per cent had been filed online.

And of the people receiving refunds, 72 per cent had received them by direct deposit.