May 18, 2026
This article is a companion piece to the article entitled “Providing CVITP Service to People Living in Poverty – 2025 Update”. It is intended to give the sources of the data used in that article and to explain the data.
According to Statistics Canada’s Canadian Income Survey for 2024, there were 3,585,000 adults living in poverty in 2024. What percentage of these adults were able to get help through the CVITP to file their 2024 return?
The CRA’s statistics page for the CVITP tells us that 926,710 adults were served by the CVITP in the 2025 return filing season. But it is impossible to tell if all these adults were living in poverty in 2024. Why?
The CRA states that the CVITP is intended to serve those living on low and moderate incomes, not just those living in poverty. What does this mean in practical terms?
The relationship between the CVITP income ceilings and the official poverty line
The CRA proposes income ceilings or thresholds that CVITP host organizations can use as cutoff points for determining client eligibility. The CRA suggests that only individuals and families with incomes below these amounts should receive the free CVITP service. For the past seven years, the CRA’s suggested income ceilings for an individual and a couple have been respectively $35,000 and $45,000.[i] How do these income ceilings compare with the official poverty line?
The official poverty line rises each year because of inflation. In general, as the poverty line has climbed, it has come closer to the CRA’s suggested income ceiling. However, the real story is a little more complicated than this.
There are 67 Market Basket Measure-based (MBM) poverty lines reflecting the very different living costs in the diverse communities that make up Canada.[ii] The 2024 figures for the poverty line range from a low of $46,101 (in rural areas of Quebec) to a high of $116,211 (in Iqaluit) for a reference family of four (two adults with two children).
This translates into poverty income thresholds for an individual and a couple of as little as $23,051 and $32,271 respectively if they live in the least costly location in the country. If, on the other hand, they live in the costliest location in Canada, this translates into poverty income thresholds for an individual and a couple of as much as $58,106 and $81,348 respectively.
Therefore, the CRA’s suggested income ceilings may be above the poverty income thresholds for an individual and a couple in low-cost locations but below these in high-cost locations in Canada.[iii]
Although the CRA’s income ceilings for the CVITP are merely suggested, most host organizations seem to adhere to them in areas where the thresholds remain above the official poverty line. Where the poverty line approaches the CRA’s suggested income ceilings, host organizations have used their discretion to raise the income ceilings they apply in selecting clients.
Thus, over time a growing percentage of the individuals assisted by the CVITP have probably had incomes which fall below the official poverty line. This means the CVITP should be increasingly serving those in genuine need of the service as they are living in poverty. Nevertheless, it is still possible in 2025 that the CVITP served some low-income individuals and families who were not living in poverty.
Despite this, an educated guess can be made as to the percentage of those living in poverty in 2024 who were served by the CVITP in the 2025 tax return filing season.
However, before venturing to estimate this percentage, it is important to note that earlier this year, Statistics Canada revised its past estimates for the number of Canadian residents living in poverty. Why did it do this?
A change in the composition of the basket of goods and services
The method used to establish the official poverty line is based on a Market Basket Measure (MBM). There are three parts to the MBM methodology: the basket of goods and services considered necessary to live on, the local prices of those goods and services, and the size of the household as this will determine how large the basket and hence how expensive the basket should be. Every five years, Statistics Canada updates the composition of goods and services that make up the basket.
Previously, Statistics Canada had been using a basket of goods and services established in 2018 (MBM based 2018). Late last year, it published new poverty data based on a basket of goods and services established in 2023 (MBM based 2023). This has led to upward revisions in the official poverty lines and, consequently, upward revisions in its estimates of Canadian residents living in poverty.[iv]
The new result for 2025 and revised results for prior years
In what follows, I make use of Statistics Canada’s MBM 2023 poverty data for more recent years and its MBM 2018 poverty data for earlier years.
[i] The CRA raised its suggested income ceilings for the 2026 tax return filing season. As this article looks at the 2025 tax return filing season, it refers to the income ceilings the CRA was suggesting at that point in time.
[ii] See this article for a simple explanation of how Canada’s official poverty line is derived.
[iii] In this article, I explain that the income ceilings used in 2025 excluded a growing number of households whose income fell below the poverty line. As indicated in the first footnote above, the CRA raised its suggested income ceilings after the 2025 return filing season.
[iv] See this article for a more detailed explanation of this update.