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Confused about legal terms? Here is an excellent webpage explaining many of them>

Obtaining Notice of Assesments from Revenue Canada online...
If you need to obtain income tax balance or refund information for your clients, or access to change your personal tax information, see www.ccra.gc.ca .Click on the 'My Account' link.

Information on this site includes tax refund information; statements of account including balances and instalment payment information; details about the assessment of individual tax returns; RRSP contributions made and limits; deductions claimed, and more.

If you have lost your 2002 Notice of Assessment, but have your 2001 NOA, you can access the 2002 information on-line rather than re-ordering a 2002 NOA. If you have no NOAs, but have filed your latest taxes, you can call the e-service help desk at 1-800-714-7257 to obtain an access code. Again, this is faster than re-ordering a hard copy NOA.

Check online credit checks
Michael Kane
Vancouver Sun
Monday, December 16, 2002

Sometimes snail mail is cheaper and better. That's my experience after paying to check my credit rating online and comparing the results with those available free via Canada Post.

A report provided by iQuiri, an online credit reporting system, arrived instantly but only provided recent information from one creditor, my bank.

That likely wouldn't satisfy anyone else I might ask for credit and it is certainly not enough information to reassure me that no errors have been recorded on a credit history that goes back to 1974. Nor does it tell me who had been requesting my credit data, something every consumer is entitled to know.

I was out $13.95 after falling for a pitch that iQuiri, which has offices in Vancouver and Calgary, can ""unravel the mystery of a credit report in easy-to-understand language in minutes.""

In an era of credit card fraud and identity theft, it is prudent to take the time to check the accuracy of your credit reports with each of Canada's three credit bureaus.

Tanis Jorge, 26, one of the creators of iQuiri, says there is an almost 50-50 chance that credit reports contain mistakes and misinformation that could cost you a loan or credit approvals, or result in higher costs for credit because you are considered a greater risk. Only by checking can the consumer get misinformation corrected.

Alas, iQuiri gets its credit information from Northern Credit Bureaus Inc., a consumer reporting agency that confined its operations to Ontario and Quebec before going national in the late '90s. Jorge concedes its data on Western consumers can be spotty.

She says iQuiri is negotiating to link up with one of the two main credit bureaus, Equifax Canada and TransUnion of Canada, and that should mean iQuiri will offer more comprehensive reporting early in the new year.

She also suggests iQuiri is good value for consumers who don't want to wait two weeks, or longer, to get a free mailed copies of their credit files which can be hard to decipher.

People have complained that credit reports are too difficult to read and understand, particularly as they are aimed at credit managers and financial experts, said Stephen Ufford, vice-president of business development for iQuiri.

We wanted to ensure that anyone could read our reports, so we've included a personalized credit analysis which explains what it all means and also gives your credit rating an easy-to-understand score.

The good news in my case is that Iquiri rates my over-all credit worthiness as excellent. That's its best rating ahead of good, fair, poor and very poor. Less reassuring is that iQuiri's computer-generated credit analysis states that my two accounts, a credit card and a line of credit, have a balance and that is ""an excessive amount of accounts with a balance.""

In fact, the credit card has been paid off every month for as many years as I can remember with no balances carried over. For reputation's sake, I should add all three credit bureaus record that I have never been late on a payment.

If you are in a hurry to check your credit rating, my research suggests you will get better value by going online with Equifax, the largest credit bureau in Canada. It costs a few cents more at $14.50 for your basic report and you won't get any colour graphics. However, Equifax does provide data from all the major credit grantors and uses plain English to explain the ratings of each account.

If you want more detail and a sense of how you rate in relation to other Canadians, you can spend $21.95 on ""Score Power"" which is your Equifax file plus analysis of how your credit score was achieved.

The Vancouver Sun spent the big bucks and it was reassuring to discover I belong to a cohort with only a two-per-cent chance of defaulting on our loans and that most lenders will consider offering me attractive and competitive rates.

However, I was puzzled by a caution that two inquiries about my credit file in the past 12 months could suggest that I am actively seeking credit and that ""research suggests that consumers who are seeking new credit accounts are riskier than consumers who are not seeking credit.""

Be aware that renting a cell phone and taking advantage of BC Hydro's PowerSmart program could suggest wild living to suspicious minds.

If you are not in a hurry to check your credit rating, go the snail mail route and save your money. While iQuiri maintains that may take several weeks, I received mailouts from Equifax and TransUnion within two weeks of faxing in application forms downloaded from the Internet. A colleague who did the same waited a total of 20 days.

Certainly it could take longer if you don't have Internet access and have to call each of the credit bureaus and ask them to mail or fax application forms.

Rick Cleary, the president of Equifax, says typical mail-out service is only seven days but the company can get backlogged at busy times of the year.

He also challenges the assertion that there's a 50-50 chance credit reports will contain mistakes or misinformation.

""As far as the contents of a credit report with respect to how you pay your bills and public record information such as bankruptcy information, the incidence of error on those types of things is very, very rare, nowhere near 50 per cent, Cleary said.

There is a greater likelihood of identification error where files confuse junior and senior members of the same family with the same name, or where information on place of employment or marital status is out of date.

""Those are things that the credit bureaus get from credit grantors and there is no active means of updating that information unless you are applying for credit and you give that information on your application,"" Cleary said.

While it is important to check your credit report for errors from time to time, bear in mind that it is only one factor used by lenders in determining credit worthiness.

Financial institutions will check your credit report for red flags but they also look at factors like character, employment history, home equity and income versus debt, said Wayne Hashimoto, Richmond area manager for the Bank of Montreal.

Lenders are obliged to tell clients if they are being refused credit because of their credit report, Hashimoto said.

HOW TO CHECK YOUR CREDIT FILES
The two major Canadian credit rating agencies are Equifax Canada (1-800-465-7166) and TransUnion Canada (1-866-525-0262).

A recorded message will tell you how you can get a copy of your credit filewithout charge by sending a written request and key personal information.

Alternatively you can download application forms or pay for online reports at www.equifax.ca and www.tuc.ca.

The Web site of Northern Credit Bureaus Inc. is www.creditbureau.ca. The company can be reached by fax at 1-800-646-5876 or by mail at 336 Rideau Boulevard Rouyn-Noranda QC J9X 1P2. For an online credit report visit www.iquiri.com.