PROVIDING CVITP SERVICE TO PEOPLE LIVING IN POVERTY – 2025 UPDATE

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May 18, 2026

Summary:  At the end of April, Statistics Canada released its poverty estimate for 2024.  It shows that the poverty rate decreased from 11.1% in 2023 to 11 % of the Canadian population in 2024.

How well did the Canada Revenue Agency’s CVITP do serving those living in poverty in 2024 when they needed to file their income tax and benefit return in the spring of 2025?  The CVITP performance has not changed substantially since the 2021 return filing season (for tax year 2020): it serves approximately 1 in 4 people living in poverty.

The Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) should be concerned about this weak performance for two reasons.  First, the CVITP is identified in the 2018 Poverty Reduction Strategy as the CRA’s contribution to meeting the strategy’s goals; this strategy is enshrined in legislation.  Second, within its 2023-2027 sustainable development strategy, the CRA is supposed to elaborate on the actions it is taking to contribute to poverty reduction and how it is monitoring performance of these actions.  The CRA needs to address the CVITP’s weak performance to maintain its credibility as a contributor to the federal government’s efforts to reduce poverty in Canada.In three forthcoming articles, I will look at the CRA’s plans are for the future of the CVITP, other CRA initiatives specifically designed to help low-income households file their returns and get the benefits to which they are entitled, and the Office of the Auditor General’s recent assessment of the CRA’s sustainable development strategy as it relates to the goal of poverty reduction.

At the end of April, Statistics Canada released its poverty estimate for 2024.  It shows that the poverty rate decreased from 11.1% in 2023 to 11 % of the Canadian population in 2024.

How well did the Canada Revenue Agency’s CVITP do serving those living in poverty in 2024 when they needed to file their income tax and benefit return in the spring of 2025?

The Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) does not provide any information on the CVITP’s coverage of those living in poverty.  It does not even provide information on the income situation of the CVITP’s clients.  Therefore, I cannot answer this question definitively.

But a pretty good estimate can still be made.  Each year I try to do this using the same methodology.

The methodology used for this estimation

I take the number of people served by the CVITP in any given year and generously assume that they all lived below the official poverty line in the previous year.[i]  (The given year represents the tax filing season.  The previous year is the taxation year that is being filed for during the tax filing season.)

Then I compare this number with the number of adults that Statistics Canada estimates were living below the poverty line in the previous year.  This yields the percentage of those living in poverty during the taxation year who were served by the CVITP during the next tax return filing season.

For a better understanding of the data, please see the companion article which explains where the numbers come from and what they mean.

The results are not encouraging

The CVITP performance has not changed substantially since the 2021 return filing season (for tax year 2020): it serves approximately 1 in 4 people living in poverty.

What happened to those living in poverty who were not served by the CVITP?  Either they prepared and filed their return themselves, paid someone else to do it or else simply did not file a return.

Unfortunately, there is no data available on this group.  So we have no way of knowing how many of those living in poverty who were not served by the CVITP still managed to file a return or simply did not file a return.

People living below the poverty line often do not have the means to pay for their return to be prepared and filed.  But the cost of filing a return through a commercial service provider is not the only problem.  Lack of awareness about the CVITP or restricted access to CVITP services due to excessive demand – either of these may also be a reason why a significant portion of low-income Canadians do not file a return.

Should the CRA be concerned about this?

Yes.  For at least two reasons.

Most fundamentally, because the CVITP is identified in the federal government’s 2018 Poverty Reduction Strategy as the CRA’s contribution to meeting the strategy’s goals.  The strategy is not simply a fanciful statement on the part of a previous Liberal government.  It is backed by the Poverty Reduction Act (2019) which entrenches in legislation the concrete poverty reduction targets contained within the strategy.  This means that the CRA could be called upon by Parliamentarians and the public to show how the CVITP is helping to meet the strategy’s goals.

However, the CVITP is not the CRA’s only initiative aimed at helping low-income households to file their returns.  The broader question to ask is how well the CRA is doing in helping low-income households to get the benefits intended to help reduce their income poverty.  This question is supposed to be addressed through another instrument.

In 2020, the federal government made amendments to the Federal Sustainable Development Act which requires the CRA, among many federal organizations, to develop a sustainable development strategy aligned with the federal sustainable development strategy.  The 2022-2026 Federal Sustainable Development Strategy is aligned with the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals or SDGs.  The first SDG is to end poverty by 2030.  Therefore, within its 2023-2027 sustainable development strategy, the CRA is supposed to elaborate on the actions it is taking to contribute to meeting this UN goal and how it is monitoring performance of these actions.

How is the CRA doing in contributing to the goal of poverty reduction?

I have shown above that, even generously assuming all CVITP clients live below the official poverty line, the CVITP reaches at best one in four people living in poverty and has been stuck at this level of performance for the last 5 years.

In three forthcoming articles, I will look at:

Through these three articles, I hope to give you a comprehensive picture of what the CRA is currently doing and plans to do to support poverty reduction.  I will also offer my own assessment of these plans.

[i] Why do I say, “generously assume”?  See the companion article on data for an explanation.

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