This leads to the question:
"Is it still possible to pay 2016 taxes by cheque?"
They don't say you can anymore, but they also don't say you can't. Given that "can't" would be a radical change for this year, surely they would say you can't if this were indeed the case?
I did some web searching on this question. I found nothing current on the CRA site one way or the other. In a wider search I found the following Receiver General FAQ which says:
This seems to be confirmation that 2016 tax can still be paid by cheque mailed to CRA.Q17. How do I pay money I owe to the Government of Canada?
A. All departments accept payment by cheque made to the Receiver General for Canada. Cheque payments should be mailed to the issuing department or agency, or at the Cheque Redemption and Control Directorate, located at <address snipped>.
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I get that cheque usage is declining, and has some costs and delays associated wtih it. My reading of these tea leaves is that CRA has gone on a Pravda-like experiment to see how many cheque users they can con into using a method more to CRA's liking by deliberately giving them incomplete information. I find this disturbing.
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It's ironic that one of the payment methods CRA still deigns to mention in the 2016 Guide is this:
* Call CRA and ask for a remittance voucher;
* They mail it to you and you take it to a bank branch;
* You pay the teller (perhaps with cash or a cheque!);
* The bank forwards the amount of your payment electronically to CRA.
This is more efficient than paying by cheque?
I'd be glad to hear of any other information which clarifies this question.