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Volunteers are the backbone of the CVITP as they are, for the most part, the ones who complete and file the returns for clients.  The CVITP also includes other volunteers, such as greeters and registrars, who help to make the free tax clinics run smoothly.  All potential volunteers who may have access to client information are expected to apply annually through the Canada Revenue Agency’s CVITP website; this is the case even for returning volunteers.

To successfully complete the registration process, the applicant must, among other things, be current with their own income tax and benefit returns.  The Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) assigns each volunteer who will be preparing income tax and benefit returns for clients with a unique code and a password (valid only for that tax season) to be used when filing returns.

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

What do the numbers tell us?

Over time, the number of volunteers has grown faster than the number of clients served and the number of returns filed.  This explains why we see the average number of individuals assisted per volunteer decline over the three years where we have numbers.  Although not all volunteers prepare returns, the vast majority do. In calculating the average number of returns filed per volunteer, we have assumed that all volunteers prepare returns.  As with the change over time in the number of individuals assisted, this shows that the average number of returns filed has also declined.  (If our assumption is wrong and the growth in volunteers is largely attributable to a growth in non-return preparing positions at CVITP clinics, then this decline in the average number of returns filed may be inaccurate.)

What is missing from the numbers?

As is implied above, there is a paucity of basic data on the number of CVITP volunteers per tax year.  The CRA could easily report on this number.  The CRA could also provide a breakdown, indicating how many of the volunteers actually prepare returns.  This would give a clearer understanding of where some of the needs might lie.

As with any service-oriented program, the recruitment, training and retention of staff – in this case volunteers – are key to delivering a qualitatively superior experience for clients.  The CRA does not play the lead role in recruiting volunteers to work at CVITP clinics, although it is the gatekeeper for registering them.  (We will have more to say about recruitment in part four, when speaking about host organizations.)

In the past, CRA pre-season training opportunities for CVITP volunteer preparers of returns was inconsistent across geographic regions.  For many volunteers, their main sources of information were sessions offered by host organizations or partnering with a seasoned volunteer.  This is surprising as most Canadians’ personal experience with the income tax and benefit return process is quite different from that of low-income Canadians.  (In fact, most Canadians do not even prepare their own returns; they get someone else to do it.)   CRA Departmental Results Reports offer no information on the number of training sessions for CVITP volunteers provided by or in conjunction with the CRA.

Most recently, perhaps due to the additional funding the CRA is receiving for the CVITP as announced in Budget 2018, the CRA has started to offer and participate in the training sessions of host organizations on a more consistent basis.  To illustrate the investment the CRA is making in training as one of the three pillars for improving service quality, the CRA could report on the number of CVITP volunteers it has directly assisted in training who have subsequently worked as return preparers.

As volunteers gain experience, they become more knowledgeable in providing clients with quality service.  To put it another way, more seasoned volunteers should reduce the number of errors appearing in returns submitted to the CRA.  As all volunteers must register annually, the CRA has data on returning volunteers.  To illustrate how successful the CRA is in retaining volunteers, the CRA could provide a breakdown of volunteer numbers each year that includes the number of years of CVITP experience.

However, all volunteers, even the most experienced, will make mistakes at one time or another.  As part of the CRA’s training efforts, it could be highlighting common mistakes that volunteers make based on its experience of the previous tax season.  Given that each volunteer uses a unique identified code when filing returns, the CRA could also provide more individualized feedback as part of its efforts to retain volunteers for future tax seasons.  This feedback could include the total number of returns filed by the individual volunteer, the number that were processed error free and, where there were errors, the most common mistakes made by the individual.

A cautionary note about the numbers

The CRA has reported only three times on the numbers in its Departmental Results Reports and, in the most recent two cases, only by giving the growth figure over the previous tax year, not the actual number of volunteers.

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 includes in its background notes the number of CVITP volunteers 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.

Read the next section, entitled The Evolution of the CVITP – Host Organizations, in which we look at what the CRA has published about the community-based organizations across Canada which recruit volunteers and host CVITP clinics.