January 16, 2023

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Notes:

• All figures are taken from Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) sources.  Because the CRA does not consistently report figures for the CVITP in one report, sources vary by year and by category.
• CRA generally uses May 16 to May 15 of the next year as its reporting period.  (For example, for the 2022 tax season, the figures are taken from May 16, 2021, to May 15, 2022.)
• A tax year is the same as the next year’s tax season.  (For example, returns for the 2021 tax year are prepared in the 2022 tax season.)

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Individuals Assisted

The number of individuals assisted peaked in the 2019 tax season.  The 2020 tax season was thrown into disarray with the introduction of COVID related restrictions that closed in-person clinics.  The 2021 tax season saw a partial rebound but still well behind the numbers reached in 2016.  While the CRA calls the number provided for the 2022 tax season an approximation, it is roughly the same as for the 2021 tax season.

The 2022 tax season represented no increase in CVITP service, assisting 77.6% of the clients served in 2019 (peak year) and 83% of the clients served in 2016 (the earliest year that data is available).

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Returns Filed

The trend for returns filed largely mirrors that for individuals assisted.  The absence of any figure provided for the 2021 tax season is due to a change instituted by the CRA.  It used to report on the number of returns filed by the CVITP as one of its key performance indicators.  But starting with the 2020 tax season, the CRA chose instead to report on the number of people assisted through the CVITP as a key performance indicator.  Starting with the 2023 tax season, the CRA has indicated it will drop reporting on the CVITP altogether from its key performance indicators.

The 2022 tax season represented an improvement over the 2020 tax season, but the number of returns filed was still only 76.6% of the number in 2019 (peak year).  While the 2022 number was 113% of the number achieved in 2013 (earliest year the data is available), starting in 2016 the number of returns filed exceeded the performance in 2022.

It can be safely assumed that the individuals served through the CVITP in any year were assisted in filing a return for the most recent tax year.  The number of returns filed in excess of the number of individuals assisted signals the filing of prior year returns.  These are returns that went unfiled prior to the most recent tax year.  (Perhaps an individual failed to file for one prior year and got back up to date in the most recent tax season.  In the extreme, chronic non-filers may get caught up with filing multiple prior year returns.)  By taking the ratio of the number of returns filed to the number of individuals assisted, one can derive the average number of returns filed per client.

The trend here suggests that 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 the 2022 tax season.  This could be for one of two reasons.  Either the CVITP has made such inroads in recent years with the filing of prior year returns that the proportion of unfiled prior year returns is now less significant.  Or host organizations were simply less willing to file prior year returns in the 2022 tax season.

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Value Generated

For the first time, the CRA has reported in its Departmental Results Report (DRR) on the value of the refund and benefits generated through the CVITP.  (A small number of host organizations do this for their own clinics.  However, there are many practical reasons why most host organizations do not.)

In principle, this is a welcome development.  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.

However, in its future reporting the CRA should be more explicit about the methodology it uses to arrive at this figure.  In the 2019 presentation we refer to above, the CRA indicated that the data included federal and provincial as well as territorial benefits, took into account prior year returns as well as those for the most recent tax season, and was calculated on the basis of the same time period as for other data it reports on for the tax season (i.e., from May 16 of the previous year to May 15 of the current year).

In its most recent DRR, the CRA indicated that this figure represents refunds and benefits.  But exactly which benefits does it include?  (For example, does it include the provincial and territorial benefits that are also contingent upon filing an income tax and benefit return?  Does it include the federal government’s Climate Action Incentive which is contingent upon filing an income tax and benefit return in Alberta, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Ontario, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island and Newfoundland and Labrador?)  And what is the CRA’s rationale for excluding any benefits in the count?  An understanding of the benefits that make up this figure will allow for comparability over time, thereby allowing for analysis of trends.

To learn more about the volunteers and the host organizations – what we call the infrastructure – that supports the delivery of CVITP services, see part 2 – Infrastructure Supporting Service Delivery.