Category Archives: Volunteers

Recent developments for volunteers

Great CRA Innovations: Represent A Client

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This article describes “Represent A Client”, a new Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) innovation that we tried for the first time this year.  It gives the CVITP volunteer registered for EFILE and a representative identifier (Rep ID) access – on a read-only basis – to the client’s entire CRA Account (whether or not the client has set up their own access to it).  If the CVITP volunteer has the client’s permission, this function can be used for many things including:

  • Getting T slip information to prepare income tax and benefit returns prior to 2017;
  • Seeing the Express Notice of Assessment on the same day the return is efiled;
  • Confirming that the CRA has received a return submitted by paper; and
  • Troubleshooting a wide range of questions raised by the client.

The article also explains how the authorized CVITP volunteer can access the client’s CRA account using “Represent A Client”.

Why Every Volunteer Should Learn How to Use “Autofill My Return”

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First introduced by the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) in 2017, Autofill My Return (AFR) is a great innovation.  We use it all the time.

But when we speak with other volunteers about AFR, we are struck by the large number, many of them quite experienced, who continue not to use it.  (The CVITP end-of-season survey results for 2022  corroborates this picture of low usage: only 35% of survey respondents confirmed that they made use of AFR.)

When we ask why they don’t use it, two of the most common complaints we hear are that it is too complicated and that it takes too much time to use.

This article outlines nine reasons why we think every volunteer should learn how to use AFR.   Let us know if there’s a reason we’ve missed.  We also want to hear from clinic coordinators as to why they think their organizations can offer satisfactory CVITP services without insisting that their volunteers use AFR.  

Improving Calls to the CVITP Helpline for Client Information: A Simple, Secure Proposal

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There comes a time in every volunteer’s work where they need to get on the phone with the client and call the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) CVITP Helpline.  The Helpline is, in principle, a really good innovation which delivers expert advice efficiently.  But more frequently than we would like, we have an experience which reminds us just how incredibly difficult it can be for some clients in communicating with the CRA.  The barriers to client identification can be onerous, even for a client who is very well prepared going into the call.

Too often, the call’s success depends on the CRA agent who takes the call.  The CRA agent first needs to ascertain that the client is indeed who they say they are.  To do this, the CRA agent will ask for information on the client’s file which the client should know.  Some CRA agents appear to detect from the way they answer that the client is likely to have problems with some of these questions.  So, the CRA agent goes out of their way to permit the call to proceed.  But this is not always the case.

Where the client fails to convince the CRA agent of their identity, the CRA agent will terminate the call.  Often this results in the client being scared away from calling the CRA again.  The client may also lose faith in the competence of the volunteer, thereby damaging the reputation of the host organization.

Our article outlines a proposal which builds on the security mechanisms the CRA currently uses for the CVITP.  In addition to explaining a simple procedure which could be used to avoid the release of client information under fraudulent circumstances, we give a few considerations which should be taken into account when assessing our proposal.

Ultimately, we believe the CRA needs to place more trust in the rigorous security and confidentiality procedures it already has in place for the CVITP.  Adopting our proposal, or something very much like it, would go some way toward reducing client stress and increasing the efficient use of CRA and CVITP volunteer resources.

The Evolution of the CVITP – 2022 Update

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Canada Revenue Agency’s (CRA) recently released Departmental Results Report for fiscal year 21/22 allows us to complete the 2022 update for the evolution of the CVITP.  We have divided this subject into three short articles.  The first focuses on the results from delivering CVITP service to clients.  It includes all the data with accompanying commentary on individuals assisted, returns filed and value generated.  The second focuses on the CVITP infrastructure needed to provide this service.  It also provides all the data with accompanying commentary on host organizations and volunteers.  The third is a new feature which provides some simple measures of CVITP productivity.

Short on time?  Here are the key developments:

NO INCREASE IN CVITP SERVICE IN 2022

  • While the CRA calls the number for individuals assisted in the 2022 tax season an approximation, it is roughly the same as in the 2021 tax season; in other words, there has been no increase in service.  The 2021 tax season saw a partial rebound in numbers after the sharp decline in 2020 but it was still well below the numbers reached in 2016 and far from the peak in 2019. 
  • The trend for returns filed largely mirrors that of individuals assisted.
  • While the CVITP was making progress in filing more of its clients’ prior year returns up until and including the 2020 tax season, its performance in this area declined in 2022.
  • For the first time, the CRA has reported in its Departmental Result Report on value of the refund and benefits generated through the CVITP.  This is a very welcome development, and we hope that the CRA continues this practice in the future.  As the main rationale for offering a CVITP clinic is not to help individuals pay income tax but to help them maintain access to many poverty-reducing benefits, this figure provides tangible evidence of the real value generated for CVITP clients.

NUMBER OF HOST ORGANIZATIONS REBOUNDS BUT NUMBER OF VOLUNTEERS CONTINUES TO DECLINE

  • The number of host organizations offering CVITP service has largely rebounded in the 2022 tax season following the precipitous decline due to COVID health restrictions.
  • The trend in volunteers has been in decline since it peaked in the 2019 tax season.  The small rebound in the CRA count for 2022 is, we believe, misleading.  This is due to an unusual interpretation which the CRA makes in whom it classifies as a volunteer.  In partially correcting for this with an adjusted estimate, we show that the small rebound in 2022 is illusory and that the number of volunteers continues to decline.

PRODUCTIVITY REBOUNDS FOR VOLUNTEERS BUT NOT FOR HOST ORGANIZATIONS

  • Averages of individuals assisted and returns filed per volunteer fully rebound to the peaks achieved in the 2017 tax season.
  • Averages of individuals assisted and returns filed per host organization are only 70% and 71% respectively of the peaks achieved in the 2017 tax season.

For further analysis, charts with trends, tables with data and their sources, see:

How to Get Experienced Volunteers Back Next Year

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Once a CVITP volunteer has been recruited, trained and gained some experience, the CVITP stands to gain if the volunteer comes back again next year.  Given that the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) does not publish information about its volunteers, we do not know if the root of the problem behind its stagnating volunteer numbers is principally one of poor recruitment of new volunteers or of poor retention of existing volunteers.

Just as with the recruitment of new volunteers, the CRA currently relies primarily on its host organizations’ efforts to retain their existing volunteers for the next tax season.  Yet the evidence suggests this indirect approach, mediated via its host organizations, is not working.  In this article, we propose ways for the CRA to get directly involved in efforts to retain its existing CVITP volunteers.

Volunteers need to be recognized for their efforts.  This is a fundamental aspect of any organization’s work on retaining its volunteer.  However, at present the CRA does remarkably little to recognize its CVITP volunteers’ contributions.

This article offers ideas for the CRA to better acknowledge their volunteers’ contributions both to the volunteers themselves and to the wider community.  It also includes some other measures the CRA could take to help retain experienced volunteers.

These suggestions are informed by Volunteer Canada’s Canadian Code for Volunteer Involvement (CCVI) and, in particular, its checklists for putting the Code into action (including the checklist on recruitment on page 9).  While it has not adopted the Code, we believe the CRA should heed its advice as the Code represents the industry standard for Canadian organizations, whether non profit or government, in working with volunteers.

Stagnating Volunteer Numbers: Will CRA Succeed In Recruiting Better?

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The federal government has frequently indicated it wants the CVITP to grow.  In recent years, the CVITP budget has quadrupled to expedite this growth.  As volunteers lie at the heart of the CVITP’s service delivery, the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) needs to ramp up recruitment.  How’s that going?

In the first article of this three-part series, we explore the current trends for volunteering in Canada and in the CVITP.  We present evidence suggesting that the CVITP faces an existential threat with stagnant or declining volunteer numbers.

In the second article of this series, we review what the CRA has recently said about its plans for volunteer recruitment.  It appears to rely primarily on the volunteer recruitment efforts of its host organizations to grow its volunteer base.  Yet the evidence suggests this indirect approach, mediated via its host organizations, is not working.

Gambling further on using just this approach poses a great risk to the future success of the CVITP.  The third and final article proposes that the CRA also get directly involved in more actively recruiting volunteers.  The article offers ideas in three areas:  developing appropriate promotional materials, launching an annual recruitment campaign, and using diverse media.  These are used to illustrate what this more direct approach might look like.   The article also suggests how the CRA could manage this direct approach. 

These suggestions are informed by Volunteer Canada’s Canadian Code for Volunteer Involvement (CCVI) and, in particular, its checklists for putting the Code into action (including the checklist on recruitment on page 9).  While it has not adopted the Code, we believe the CRA should heed its advice as the Code represents the industry standard for Canadian organizations, whether non profit or government, in working with volunteers.

Once the CRA has recruited new volunteers, what can it do to keep them?  Watch for our forthcoming article on CVITP volunteer retention.

How To Coordinate CVITP Clinics, Why It Isn’t Happening And Why It Should

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We work as CVITP volunteers in a large urban area.  At the height of the tax season, in March and April, there are over 40 host organizations offering CVITP clinics in our area.  Yet they do not coordinate their CVITP efforts between themselves.  We suspect this is true in many urban centres.  Why?

In this article, we give nine examples to illustrate some of the ways in which CVITP host organizations can coordinate by pooling clients, volunteers and information.

We then explore the question of why this doesn’t happen more often.  In a nutshell, many host organizations feel they cannot afford the costs, in the short term, to closer collaboration.  Ideally, the CRA’s regional coordinators could take on the role of leading coordination efforts amongst host organizations within their regions, helping to overcome some of these costs.  However, given the CRA’s generally cautious approach to the CVITP, we do not see this happening anytime soon.

Yet we know that there are cases of closer collaboration between host organizations, even if infrequent.  We offer up the intriguing example of Aspire Calgary to show how 18 host organizations have managed to closely collaborate on a range of activities related to the CVITP, from training to fundraising.  Working together, they have managed to produce impressive results in support of Calgary’s poverty reduction strategy: in 2019, their 572 volunteers filed 8,797 returns in 325 clinics which generated $43 million in government benefits for people on low incomes.  We briefly outline three notable features of Aspire Calgary’s model which support this collaboration.

Such cases demonstrate that some organizations are willing to incur the short-term costs associated with better collaboration.   Why?  We believe it is because they have realized that the short-term costs are outweighed by the benefits over the medium term.  Chief amongst these benefits is better client service: more clients can be assisted; they can be assisted by volunteers who better understand their particular circumstances and the service can be offered on a more flexible basis.

Finally in our article, we set out a challenge in 2023 for host organizations who are willing to take the first step toward closer collaboration with others in their region.  We propose volunteer training, an area we find to be neglected at many host organizations we know and an important element for improving service to clients.

The Evolution of the CVITP – 2021 Final Edition

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This is a follow up to our early edition on the evolution of the CVITP in 2021.  We consider the CRA’s annual Departmental Results Report the gold standard for CRA reporting because the report is submitted to Parliament.  Even then, data on all four elements – clients, returns, volunteers and host organizations – is hard to come by.  It is growing increasingly difficult for Parliament, the public and the host organizations and volunteers directly involved in making the CVITP a reality to know what’s happening.

In our article, we briefly discuss the numbers and their sources.  We show that the number of clients served rebounded by 43% from the spectacular low of the 2020 tax season.  (Remember: that was the season when host organizations had to stop offering in-person CVITP clinics due to the COVID health restrictions.)  Nevertheless, the number of clients served was still well below the peak achieved during the 2019 tax season.  As the CRA did not report consistently on the number of returns filed, we can only assume that it was greater than the number of clients served.  But we don’t know by how much.

Although the CRA did not report formally on the number of volunteers, we find a number in a statement by the Minister of National Revenue which suggests it declined substantially from the number reported for the 2020 tax season.  The number reported for host organizations represents a spectacular decline from the 2020 tax season.  We note that the numbers provided by the CRA for volunteers and host organizations in the 2020 tax season are misleading in that they likely included those registered with the CRA at the beginning of the season rather than those who were able to adapt to CVITP virtual clinics.  Furthermore, the 2021 figure for volunteers is simply too high to be credible.  In any event, the declines in the number of volunteers and of host organizations over the 2020 and 2021 tax seasons is deeply troubling.

The Evolution of the CVITP – 2021 Early Edition

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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.

Do you have what it takes to be a volunteer tax preparer?

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We are pleased to offer you the first article prepared by a fellow CVITP volunteer.  Alan Pearson has written a short article “for people who are considering volunteering with the CVITP and for agencies who are thinking of hosting a clinic.”  He identifies two areas where volunteers need skills, one technical and the other inter-personal.  He briefly describes what the specific skills are in each of these two areas.  Reader reactions to Alan’s article are also welcome.

We encourage volunteers and host organizations to submit articles on any topic related to the CVITP.  Simply use the “Contact Us” page to connect with us.  We do not have to agree with the views expressed by our contributors: we welcome and will publish different perspectives on CVITP issues.

CRA Data and Analysis Suggestions for a More Effective CVITP Strategy

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As mentioned in a previous article, one priority in her Supplementary Mandate Letter from the Prime Minister (dated January 2021) instructs the Minister of National Revenue to “enhance and expand the Community Volunteer Income Tax Program”.  One thing the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) can do to help achieve this is through placing greater emphasis on another priority mentioned in the same letter, instructing Minister Lebouthillier to “improve the collection and analysis of disaggregated data related to supports and services offered by the CRA.”

Data needs to be collected and analyzed for at least two reasons.  First, to confirm whether or not the CVITP is meeting its intended objective.  And second, where the CVITP is falling short of its intended objective, to help devise strategies to ensure the program can better meet its intended objective.

We think the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) currently has two related problems with respect to CVITP data.  First, it collects the wrong data and publishes too little of what it does collect.  Second, this means the CRA focuses on doing the wrong things.

In this two-part series of articles, we look at data and its use in formulating strategy.

In the first article, entitled “First, the CRA Needs to Collect and Analyze the CORRECT Data”, we examine the data that is collected and analyzed on clients and their returns.  We begin with the uncontroversial observation that data needs to be collected and analysed to confirm whether or not the CVITP is meeting its intended objective.  We then refer to a previous article in which we argued that the CRA presently collects and reports CVITP results data which are not aligned with the purpose and in which we offered alternative performance indicators which we believe do a better job of this.  We also look at the data the CRA currently collects on CVITP host organizations and volunteers – what we call the delivery infrastructure – and make some modest suggestions for additional data to be collected through the annual registration process just prior to the tax season.

In the second article, entitled “Then, the CRA Needs to Build a Strategy With a Focus on Improving EFFICIENCY”, we look at how all this data can be used to devise strategies to ensure the CVITP can better meet its intended objective.  The combination of analyses of data on CVITP results and delivery infrastructure can help to inform the choice of actions to be taken.  The strategic priority we focus on is increasing the number of CVITP clients.  We argue that the CRA should place greater emphasis on increasing efficiencies within the existing delivery infrastructure over increasing the size of the delivery infrastructure.  A few examples are offered to illustrate how data on results and delivery infrastructure could be used to do this.

16 Lessons From Dealing With COVID

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As we reported here, in the 2020 tax season the CVITP served only 55% of the clients it had served in the previous year.  The Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) attributes the dramatic decline to the public health restrictions introduced in 2020 to deal with COVID.

In preparing for the forthcoming tax season, the CVITP tax clinics will be subject to similar COVID related public health restrictions.  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.  Significant changes in practices and procedures are needed to avoid an outcome similar to last year’s.

What can be learned from the experience last year which can be applied to this year’s tax season and to future years when the public health restrictions are no longer an issue?

This article identifies 16 lessons.  We also invite our readers to share additional lessons drawing on their own experiences.

The Evolution of the CVITP – 2020 Update

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We find two sources of 2020 data from Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) publications that allow us to update CVITP trends on the numbers of individuals assisted, returns filed, volunteers employed and host organizations offering free tax clinics.

In this article, we show and briefly discuss: (1) the dramatic decline in individuals assisted; (2) the continuing modest upward trend in the average number of returns filed per client; (3) a modest decline in the number of volunteers registered, which may mask a collapse in the number of volunteers who were actually employed in providing services in virtual clinics; (4) a modest increase in the number of host organizations registered which may similarly mask a collapse in the number of host organizations which actually offered services through virtual clinics; and (5) a continued decline in the average number of volunteers employed per host organization.  This last trend may be an early sign of future capacity constraints within the CVITP.

Canada Revenue Agency Report Deserves a Failing Grade

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Like all federal government departments and agencies, each year the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) produces a report for Parliament after the end of the fiscal year.  This report details what the CRA has done with the money Parliament has budgeted for its operations.  This is the only report that parliamentarians and the Canadian public will see that shows what the CRA has done in the last fiscal year to meet its mandate.

This year is no different.  On December 7, 2020, the CRA published online its Departmental Results Report for fiscal year 2019-2020.  In this article, we review what the CRA has to say in the report about the results it is getting with the CVITP and its work on encouraging previous non-filers to file a return in order to access benefits to which they are entitled.  We show that there is remarkably little information.

Although the CVITP was created in 1971, fifty years later it remains next to impossible to tell what the CVITP has achieved in relation to its objective of assisting individuals and families of low and modest incomes to submit their returns and thereby become eligible for a number of benefits and credits introduced by federal, provincial and territorial legislatures aimed at reducing poverty.  The little information that is included suggests a massive failure this year; yet, there is no analysis showing the implications of this failure and how the CRA plans to avoid a similar result in the forthcoming tax season.

This is especially disappointing given that the federal government’s 2018 Poverty Reduction Strategy highlighted the role that the CVITP is supposed to be playing in contributing to reducing poverty across Canada.  We conclude with an observation: if the rest of the information contained in the CRA’s report is anything like what the CRA has included for the CVITP and its non-filer initiative, then Canadians should be seriously concerned about the bases on which parliamentarians are making decisions allocating billions of dollars from the federal budget to finance the CRA’s annual operations.