Post Tax Season Review: Initial Impressions from the CVITP Frontlines
With the close of the tax filing season, we did an informal survey of some of our fellow CVITP volunteers, to get their first impressions of how the tax season went. This included both new as well as returning volunteers. This article contains a summary of their impressions as well as a few of our own. We welcome hearing more about some of the lessons you have drawn from your own experience of the tax filing season.
What’s New for the 2020 Tax Year?
A number of important new measures were introduced in 2020. These included the CVITP Organization Identification Number and the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) grant program for host organizations participating in the CVITP, as well as five COVID-related benefit programs and a refundable tax credit for clients. This article provides summaries of each of these with useful links where additional information can be found. It also forewarns volunteers and their host organizations of problems that clients might raise stemming from the unusual measures taken in 2020.
We also draw your attention to our article Federal Benefits and Credits which lists most of the traditional items in the federal portion of the return which you should be aware of.
2021 Tax Season – A Letter to the Minister
The Minister of National Revenue, the Honorable Diane Lebouthillier, is responsible for the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA). We recently wrote to her to express our concern about the forthcoming tax season. Without significant changes from the procedures and practices adopted in 2020 for the 2019 tax year, we worry that the CVITP experience this year will not be materially different from that of last year when CVITP operations were severely disrupted by COVID and many fewer clients were served than in recent years.
CVITP clinics will be operating under the same COVID related public health restrictions as in 2020. Furthermore, as of now the CRA has given no indication that it will change the traditional filing deadline of April 30th to ensure the continuity beyond June 2021 of the many benefits which are conditional upon filing an up-to-date return.
In light of this, we make a number of suggestions. Read our letter to the Minister here.