The T2125 lines that catch people
Line 9224 is fuel and it excludes vehicles. Meals go in at the full amount because the software applies the restriction itself. Business-use-of-home is a block of lines a client usually hands over as one number. Three places a reasonable person puts the right figure in the wrong box.
Why these three and not the obvious ones
A T2125 is assembled by the client, not issued by anyone, so it arrives as a shoebox, a spreadsheet, or a year of invoices. Most of what goes wrong is legible — a missing receipt, an unreadable total — and gets caught because it looks wrong.
These three do not look wrong. In each one the figure is correct, the arithmetic is correct, and the return computes cleanly. Only the destination is wrong, which is the class of error that survives a review.
Line 9224 is fuel, and it excludes vehicles
Fuel costs on line 9224 are for the business: heating a workshop, running a generator, propane for equipment. The client’s truck is not on this line.
Vehicle running costs belong in the motor vehicle section, where they are apportioned by business kilometres against total kilometres. A tank of diesel entered on 9224 is claimed in full and never meets that apportionment — so a sole trader who drives for work and hands over a year of fuel receipts is the exact case where this goes wrong, and where it overstates the claim.
The tell is the receipt, not the amount. A fuel receipt from a service station on a highway is almost always the vehicle; a delivery from a fuel supplier to a business address is almost always not. Sorting the pile on that question first is faster than deciding it one receipt at a time.
Meals go in at the full amount
Meals and entertainment are restricted, and the software applies the restriction itself. Enter what was spent.
A preparer who halves the total before typing it applies the restriction twice, and the client claims a fraction of what they were entitled to. This is the one on the page that costs the client money rather than exposing them, which is exactly why it goes unnoticed: nothing is ever queried, and the return is simply quietly worse.
The same applies to a client who has “already taken the 50% off” in their own spreadsheet before sending it. Ask, every time, because the spreadsheet will not say.
Business-use-of-home is a block, not a number
Home office is several lines — heat, electricity, insurance, mortgage interest or rent, property tax, maintenance — totalled and then reduced to the business-use fraction of the home.
Clients hand it over as one figure. That figure cannot be apportioned, because the fraction applies to the components; it cannot be checked, because nothing supports it; and it cannot be defended later, because there is no working behind it. Breaking it back out is the work, and it usually means going back to the client for the utility bills.
The apportionment itself has rules and numbers attached, and those are the CRA’s to state rather than ours — see T4002, the self-employed business and professional income guide.
What this means for a dropoff
None of this is reachable by Auto-fill My Return, because nobody files a fuel receipt with the CRA. A T2125 return is the one where the paperwork genuinely has to be read, sorted and placed — and where placing it correctly matters more than transcribing it correctly.
What we do about it
KeyGlance places vendors by what they are — a utility to utilities, a service station to the vehicle section rather than to fuel — enters meals at the full amount because the software applies the restriction itself, and shows its working in a note when a figure had to be split. Every value stays linked to the spot on the page it came from. It never files anything with the CRA.
What KeyGlance does · Every T2125 line we read · The same job on a rental
Questions we get asked about this
Does line 9224 include fuel for the business vehicle?
No. Line 9224 is fuel for the business — heating a workshop, running equipment — and it excludes vehicles. Vehicle running costs belong in the motor vehicle section, which apportions them by business kilometres. Putting truck gas on 9224 claims it at full value and skips that apportionment entirely.
Should I halve meals and entertainment before entering them?
No. Enter the full amount. The software applies the restriction itself, so halving first applies it twice and the client claims a quarter of what they spent. This is the trap that costs a client money rather than exposing them, which is why nobody notices it.
A client gave me one number for their home office. Is that enough?
Rarely. Business-use-of-home is a block of lines — heat, electricity, insurance, mortgage interest or rent, property tax, maintenance — with the business-use fraction applied to the total. One number cannot be apportioned and cannot be checked, so it has to be broken back out before anything can be entered.