CVITP figures for the number of people assisted this year and the number of volunteers registered show a second year of poor performance, well below its peak for the 2018 tax year (2019 tax season).  The poor performance last year was not surprising given the sudden imposition of public health restrictions due to COVID.

In the lead up to the 2021 tax season (2020 tax year), the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) had ample time to plan for the operation of the CVITP under public health restrictions.  However, the CVITP’s performance this year was only marginally better than last year.  This is despite the CRA having been allocated in recent years a large administrative budget increase for the CVITP that was intended to double the number of people assisted.

What’s going on here?  We may never know the full story.  Earlier this year, the CRA indicated it will not be providing any information on the CVITP in its future reports to Parliament.  The timing of this decision may be purely coincidental.  But one can be forgiven for thinking that the CRA’s recent poor performance on managing the CVITP might have had something to do with it.

For further analysis with numbers and our sources, see our short article here.