Do you have taxes to pay? Depending on your situation and goals, it may be beneficial to use a platform such as Plastiq or PaySimply that allows you to pay your taxes by credit card.
This allows you to earn cash back and unlock welcome bonuses to earn big amounts of reward points such as Aeroplan points, Membership Rewards, and more.
For Plastiq: As of February 9, 2023, electronic payments are no longer available to the Canada Revenue Agency. From now on, only payments made with Visa or Mastercard are accepted and must be sent by check, with a 2.9% fee.
We recommend using these platforms for two scenarios:
Be aware that a payment with Plastiq or PaySimply will be categorized as “other expense” by your credit card, which is generally the category that earns the least cash back or points. So, unless your credit card offers more than 2.5% (PaySimply fee) or 2.9% (for Plastiq), you will lose money by using this service to pay your taxes by credit card.
Let’s see the two scenarios where using PaySimply or Plastiq can be an profitable option for you.
To maximize the return on your tax payments in the form of cash back, you should choose to pay with a card:
The following are credit cards that meet these criteria if used in accordance with the welcome bonus requirements:
To see what kind of return you can get on $5,000 in tax payments, let’s take the example of The CIBC Dividend® Visa Infinite* Card and The Scotia Momentum® VISA Infinite* Card with PaySimply.
By taking advantage of the welcome offers of these two cards, I will be able to :
This will give me a total of $500 cash back on my tax payments.
Since I’ll have paid a 2.5% fee (or $125) on these two payments through PaySimply, I’ll save a net total of $375 by using these welcome offers to pay $5,000 in taxes.
So, in total, I get 7.5% net cash back on up to $5,000 in tax payments with PaySimply.
Plus, there will be no annual fee on either card for the first year!
Here are the details of each of these cards.
The CIBC Dividend® Visa Infinite* Card is one of the best Visa credit cards with cash back in Canada.
Right now, with this welcome offer, get a 10% welcome bonus in the form of up to $300 cash back (period covered by your first 4 statements) and a first-year annual fee rebate†!
With this CIBC Cash Back Credit Card, you get:
For example, if you spend $1,000 per month on groceries and/or gas and/or electric vehicle charging, you’ll earn $40 cash back per month or $480 cash back per year with this card for this category of purchases!
And that’s not counting the other purchases you’ll make with this card and the advantages it offers (particularly in terms of insurance).
And this CIBC Cash Back Credit Card offers many insurance coverages:
The Scotia Momentum® VISA Infinite* card is recognized year after year as one of the best cash-back credit cards in Canada.
Currently, there is no annual fee in the first year, including on additional cards. And you can earn 10% cash back on all purchases for the first three months (up to $2,000 in total purchases).
With the Scotia Momentum® VISA Infinite* card, you get:
For example, if you spend $1,000 per month on groceries and/or recurring payments, you’ll earn $40 cash back per month, or $480 cash back per year with this card for this category of purchases! And that’s not counting the other purchases you’ll make with this card and the advantages it offers (particularly in terms of insurance).
If you rent, for example, you could use the Scotia Momentum® Visa Infinite* Card on the Chexy website to pay your rent and get 4% cash back!
The Scotia Momentum® VISA Infinite* card is an excellent Visa credit card for cash back.
And its insurance benefits are excellent!
The other option that can be rewarding to use Plastiq or PaySimply is in order to reach a spending threshold that will unlock a welcome offer on a credit card.
This can be especially useful for premium credit cards that often require a significant level of spending in the first few months to earn the bonus points.
For example, you need to spend $10,000 in three months to get the American Express Platinum Card® and $7,500 in three months for the American Express® Business Gold Rewards Card®. Since Plastiq no longer accepts payments with American Express, you will have to use PaySimply instead.
Individuals can also apply for American Express business cards. Here’s how:
Here are some other examples of credit cards that require a certain level of spending in the first few months to unlock great welcome bonuses:
Note that these credit cards include many other benefits such as insurance, travel credits, free checked luggage and much more. Take the time to review them to see which one will be most beneficial to your travel habits and goals.
If you want one of these premium cards, but they seem out of reach because of the spending threshold required to unlock the welcome offer, your tax payments could help unlock this bonus.
You can also combine this strategy with gift cards to successfully reach a spending threshold.
Before you get into the process of making tax payments, do your calculations to see if it’s worth it to sign up for new credit cards, and which one to sign up for based on the amount you’ll have to pay.
Tax season is never the happiest time of year when you owe money. At least by using these strategies with PaySimply and Plastiq, you can take the opportunity to go out and earn cash back or rewards points to help fund some of your upcoming trips!
Ready to try one of these options? Use our tutorials:
Savings are here:
