Sherpa Tax app helps navigate a mountain of Canadian tax credit rules

Filing your taxes every spring can feel like getting over a mountain.

That's part of the reason why Omeed Asadi created Sherpa Tax, an application that calculates your eligibility for every provincial and federal tax credit.

The whole process takes fewer than ten minutes. It provides you with a report that you can take to your accountant or use to file your taxes at home. And it's free.

The idea for the site started when Asadi was in a slump. The 25-year-old Torontonian had just been laid off from his job around tax time last year. Being on a fixed income, he needed to be economical in any way possible.

He was looking online to see if he was eligible for any tax benefits when it struck him: The government websites are impossible to navigate — there were four separate sites with language that made the information inaccessible.

So he decided to "take being laid off as an opportunity to make something."

He enrolled in a course called How To Start A Startup. He designed the concept and researched all of the tax credits, benefits and incentives. He wrote all the copy that would be included on the website. He worked with developers to get the site made. And finally, he launched the site.

The mission is made clear on the site's about page.

"The average Canadian family spends 42 per cent of their income on taxes. That means that in 2016, you won't receive a single penny from your job until May!" the Sherpa Tax site reads. "We think it's only fair that you retrieve everything you're owed."