This might have been innovative, but the paying of federal income tax can hardly be called a “convenience”! (You had better treat this as tongue in cheek.) But income taxes did provide the funding of services and a standard of living for all Canadians; to make us the envy of the free world.
The collection of Income Tax in Canada started with the implementation of the “The Income War Tax Act, of 1917 and Amendment” when the federal government was faced with the very costly need to outfit the armed forces and place the nation on a war footing, during the years of World War 1, 1914 to 1918.
These two early income tax documents from 1918 and 1919 were filed by Alex Bromley, a Bromley Line farmer, and are wonderful examples of the tax forms then used by “Farmers and Ranchers”. Note the differing Penalties (found at the bottom of the first page), between the two forms for failing to make a return.
Magnify these documents by zooming in for easier reading:
The forms required a very detailed listing of livestock, commodities and transactions by the farmer and would have served as a rich source of information about farming in general. It gives us a window into what a typical farm was producing during that era.
So our federal income taxation is but another painful outcome of wartime.