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While the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) authorizes volunteers to work on the CVITP, volunteers are not allowed to set up shop on their own to offer free tax clinics.  Instead, volunteers must find a community-based organization authorized by the CRA to host the clinics that is willing to take them.  In addition to accepting only volunteers who have registered with the CRA, the host organization may apply additional selection criteria when recruiting volunteers.  The most common requirement is for the volunteer to provide a recent Police Record Check to the host organization.  The responsibility for training volunteers falls to the host organizations.

The host organizations generally set up and run free tax clinics that fit within their existing organizational constraints; these may or may not be well suited to their clients’ needs.  This means that free tax clinics generally run only during the months of March and April as they do not have the resources to offer these throughout the year.  The clinics are generally offered from Mondays to Fridays during regular business hours (as this is when most host organizations operate) but may, in some cases, also be offered on weekends.  While appointments may be booked in advance, some host organizations offer drop-in clinics (without appointment).  Some host organizations also offer mobile clinics; in this case, volunteers go into group or individual client residences, especially where there are issues of limited client mobility (e.g. seniors).

During all of these appointments, clients will normally meet face-to-face with the volunteers who prepare their returns.  Note that the foregoing characteristics apply in a typical year; the COVID-19 related public health restrictions introduced during the 2019 tax season meant that a whole new form of delivery (called “virtual clinics”) had to be developed which may not endure once the restrictions are eventually lifted.

The CRA insists that host organizations offer these return preparation services at no cost to their clients.  This principle is adhered to by most but not all host organizations as some may need funds to support the costs they incur when offering this service.  Many host organizations do not receive funding from any outside sources to provide these clinics.  (Tax clinic clients may already be making use of other essential services offered by the host organization and the host organization often recognizes that its clients need this service as well.)

It is noteworthy that the CRA has stated it must maintain an arms length relationship with host organizations offering this service and therefore it does not provide any direct financial support.  Instead, the CRA offers indirect support in the form of free tax preparation software (used for the electronic filing of client returns) and, in rare instances, USB keys and used laptops.

Here is what we know about the evolution of the number of CVITP host organizations.

What do the numbers tell us?

The two years of growth figures suggest the CRA increased the number of host organizations faster than the number of individuals assisted, returns filed, and volunteers employed over the same time period.  This shows up in the declining averages associated with all three variables.

What is missing from the numbers?

One of the key problems is the limited ability of clients to access this service.  There is anecdotal evidence to suggest that the demand for the service outstrips the number of clinics available, at least in some municipalities. 

One reason for limited accessibility is that most host organizations only offer this service during the March-April period.  CRA has indicated its intention to help host organizations hold more tax clinics throughout the year.  As the CRA manages a public directory of host organizations offering the service (available on its website), it has the information on the community-based organizations which offer these clinics.  It would be useful for the CRA to provide a breakdown, by month, for the number of host organizations offering this service during the year.  This could be compared with data from the previous year to highlight changes.

But limited free service outside of March and April is not the only problem restricting accessibility to free tax clinics year-round.  Another reason is a geographic mismatch between client demand and the availability of host organizations.  It would be useful for the CRA to provide a breakdown, by geographic region, of the number of host organizations offering this service during the year.  This could also be compared with data from the previous year to highlight changes.

Another of the key problems is that the averages shown in the above table distort the real picture.  There are a few large host organizations in urban centres (such as WoodGreen Community Services in Toronto, Community Financial Counselling Services in Winnipeg, Renfrew-Collingwood in Vancouver and South East Ottawa Community Health Centre). Each provides this service to thousands of clients. In contrast, there are a multitude of small host organizations both in urban and rural settings which each provide this service to less than 100 clients a year.

Together, the data on geographic breakdown and month of year could serve as the basis for more detailed analysis to pinpoint regional differences in accessibility during different months of the year.  This would start to illustrate how well the CRA is doing in fulfilling its intention to help host organizations hold more tax clinics throughout the year across Canada.

Although there are only two years of growth figures, they would appear to indicate healthy growth in the number of host organizations offering this service.  However, one cannot conclude from this that the offering of the free tax clinics is keeping pace with (or exceeding) the growth in client demand.

It would be useful for the CRA to provide a breakdown, by range of number of clients served (e.g. 1-50, 51-100, 101-500, 501-1000, over 1000), of the number of host organizations offering this service during the year.  Again, this could be compared with data from the previous year to highlight changes.

Similarly, this data could be combined with those on geographic breakdown and month of year to offer a more detailed analysis on differences in accessibility.  It would further the understanding of how well the CRA is doing in fulfilling its intention to help host organizations hold more tax clinics throughout the year across Canada to meet unserved client demand.

A cautionary note about the numbers

With the exception of the number given for 2014, the CRA has reported only twice on the numbers in its Departmental Results Reports and, in both cases, only by giving the growth figure over the previous tax year, not the actual number of host organizations.

So, how did we manage to produce the numbers?  A CRA news release announcing the opening of free virtual clinics to complete the 2019 tax season included in its background notes the number of CVITP host organizations for the 2018 Tax Year.  Using the growth figures, we worked backwards to produce the numbers.  As they are estimates, we have rounded them off to the nearest ten.

Here’s what it looks like when we put together the data we have on the volunteers employed and the organizations that employed them to host CVITP clinics.

In our final section, entitled The Evolution of the CVITP – Conclusion, we bring together everything we have covered in this and our previous sections on clients, returns and volunteers. More than just a summary, we make some recommendations on future CRA reporting requirements for the CVITP.