Have you prepared a newcomer’s income tax and benefit return recently?  When filing the return, you may have told the client this action will automatically trigger the disbursement of benefits to which they are entitled.  But you may be surprised to learn that this is not always correct.

Often, the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) will inform the client that they must first provide more information.  Find out here what this information is, why the CRA does a poor job of communicating this to the client and how it could do all this better in two simple steps.

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.