Ombudsperson Final Update — 2022–2023 Annual Report
Background
This report centred around the Taxpayer Bill of Rights. This document was initially comprised of 15 rights but has since evolved to include 16 rights following a recommendation made by a previous Taxpayers’ Ombudsperson. Although it is a set of principles and not true justiciable rights, on occasion these rights support arguments for natural justice, such as procedural fairness.
Some of our observations in the report looked at the CRA’s Service Feedback Program. During this fiscal year, the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) made efforts to reduce the backlog to this program, however, it did not proactively inform Canadians on its web page of the delays to process complaints. Consequently, we received numerous complaints about Service Feedback delays. We also know other areas at the CRA had delays that Canadians only became aware of once they had contacted the CRA.
The report also explored grants provided to free tax clinics and the importance of identifying non-filers in Canada.
Update
We made 4 recommendations in the report. The CRA agreed with all of our recommendations and created an action plan. However, this action plan did not sufficiently address all our recommendations.
Recommendation 1
The Taxpayers’ Ombudsperson recommended that the CRA proactively inform Canadians on Canada.ca of delays a program may be experiencing, to increase transparency and provide Canadians with the information they need.
Our analysis of the CRA’s actions
The CRA indicated it
reviewed its approach for identifying and informing clients of significant delays, to ensure that core programs in the CRA’s program inventory communicate any significant service delays on the program’s Canada.ca webpage(s) and on the CRA’s Check Processing Time page in a timely manner, where appropriate, and that updates are made to these pages once updated timelines are known.
The CRA’s action has addressed our recommendation. We have noticed a more proactive approach in recent years, including the CRA setting clearer expectations with taxpayers. For example, the CRA now includes the length of time it will take for it to review service complaints.
Recommendation 2
The Taxpayers’ Ombudsperson recommends that the CRA:
- Update its Check CRA Processing TimesFootnote 1 tool to include tax returns and tax-related requests that have internal processing timeframes but no service standard; and
- Provide links from its income tax and benefit package web page and other tax-related request web pages to the Check CRA Processing Times tool.
Our analysis of the CRA’s actions
Following our recommendation, the CRA did provide links from many web pages to its Check CRA Processing Times tool and continues to do so. These actions fulfilled the second part of the recommendation.
However, the CRA did not detail any actions about other tax-related requests in the tool that do not have a service standard, such as the Form T1213, Request to Reduce Tax Deductions at Source. This is a missed opportunity for the CRA, as it did not address the first part of the recommendation.
If the CRA were to provide internal processing timeframes online to taxpayers, they could easily find the processing timeframe without needing to call the CRA. That said, we saw the CRA commit to doing this more recently in response to our Systemic Report, Timing is Everything. The CRA said that it will add a new internal timeframe to its Check CRA Processing Times tool, specifically on how long it takes to process Canada child benefit (CCB) correspondence. Therefore, we are encouraged to see that the CRA is open to including additional items. However, the CRA should not stop with CCB correspondence; it should make all its internal timeframes public.
Recommendation 3
The Taxpayers’ Ombudsperson recommends that the CRA:
- simplify the administrative process for the tax clinics and continue offering the Grant Program for the Community Volunteer Income Tax Program (CVITP) and the Income Tax Assistance – Volunteer Program (ITAVP) in Quebec; and,
- consider making long term investments in the program for the benefit of Canadians.
Our analysis of the CRA’s actions
The CRA’s action plan sufficiently addressed the recommendation. The CRA introduced more tools and has streamlined processes to simplify the administrative process when applying for the CVITP Grant, a program designed to offset the cost of hosting free tax clinics. Further, the grant program, originally scheduled as a three-year pilot program has been extended twice by the Minister of National Revenue. The CRA must now look to make this program permanent so it can continue to help even more taxpayers file every year.
Recommendation 4
The Taxpayers’ Ombudsperson recommends that the CRA find new ways to estimate and identify non-filers in Canada and their demographical make-up. The CRA will then be able to use this data to better educate and inform vulnerable populations who may be entitled to apply for benefits but who are not currently receiving them.
Our analysis of the CRA’s actions
The CRA said
[It will also] explore a new way of identifying non-filers by working with Statistics Canada to explore a complementary way to estimate non-filing rates for six vulnerable population segments (Indigenous, youth, seniors, newcomers, housing insecure individuals, and persons with disabilities) by linking Statistics Canada’s Census data to CRA’s detailed administrative income data[…]
Access to Benefits for Hard-to-Reach Populations (PDF, 2.3 MB), a final joint report to the Standing Committee on Public Accounts was published in April 2024. The linkage rate studies are published on Canada.ca for more information go to 2024 Edition (2020 tax year).
The actions the CRA took sufficiently addressed our recommendation. Now the CRA must use this data to better educate and inform vulnerable populations, who may be entitled to benefits but are not currently receiving them to apply.
Conclusion
CRA has made and continues to make improvements based on our recommendations. We encourage the CRA to continue to look at the spirit of our recommendations as it makes business decisions in the future.