I have accountants that I work with on both my PC and personal taxes, but I've had some personal crises in my life in the last 2 months that I'm still working through, so I feel like I may run out of time to complete my personal tax return. I'm not sure if I'll owe taxes or have a refund, but I did read this:

"If you file the final return late and there is a balance owing, the CRA will charge a late filing penalty. The CRA will also charge you interest on both the balance owing and any penalty. The penalty is 5% of any balance owing, plus 1% of the balance owing for each full month that the return is late, to a maximum of 12 months."

Could I, to be on the safe side if I were to miss the deadline, make a lump-sum payment of say $5000 or so right now to the CRA, to avoid having a balance owing and hence negate possibility of a penalty?

The obvious solution is "do your taxes on time" but with the life tragedies that have been going on, and the stress at work, this would give me some more personal freedom to have a semblance of return to normalcy.