July 1, 2026
Summary
Launched in 2016, this is the oldest of the three initiatives I review in this article. It also happens to be the only one to have terminated, in 2025. Unlike these other two initiatives and the CVITP, it is the only initiative to assist low-income filers that has consistently been reported on to Parliament.
The CRA identified people who had not filed a return and sent them a letter outlining the benefits of filing a return, encouraging them to do so. The CRA claimed that approximately 10% of letter recipients filed a return thanks to the letter.
There were two problems with this initiative. First, the scale of the initiative was small. Letters were sent out to a small percentage of estimated non-filers. This meant that the number of people responding was insignificant. Second, it could simply have been coincidental that letter recipients happened to file a return in the next tax season; there was no attempt made to demonstrate that the initiative could claim the credit.
This is the first section of the article entitled “Are Other CRA Programs Better At Helping Low-income Households File Their Returns?”
Launched in 2016, this is the oldest of the three initiatives I review in this article. It also happens to be the only one to have terminated; 2024 was the last year it operated. Given this, why mention it? For two reasons.
First, it illustrates some weaknesses in Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) assumptions that are also contained in the other two initiatives. And second, unlike these other two initiatives and the CVITP, it is the only initiative to assist low-income filers that has consistently been reported on to Parliament for the last nine years as part of the CRA’s key performance indicators. The key performance indicator for this initiative reads “the percentage of taxpayer (benefit recipients) who filed as a result of targeted CRA intervention”.
Previous articles on this initiative:
- November 2020: The Issue of Non-filers
- February 2023: Disappointing Distraction – The CRA’s Non-filers Benefits Letter Campaign
- October 2024: Why We Doubt The CRA’s Results From Its Non-filers Initiative
How did it work? The CRA identified people who had not filed a return and sent them a letter outlining the benefits of filing a return, encouraging them to do so.
The CRA did not publish any criteria for the selection of individuals. It also did not report on the number of letters sent but returned by Canada Post with invalid mailing addresses.
Note that the CRA never stated explicitly that this initiative was to reduce poverty, only to help people get the benefits to which they were entitled. However, as the benefits referred to here are income tested, those on low incomes are more likely to be eligible for these benefits – but only if they file a return confirming their income.
Trivial Scale
The overall number of people who do not file a return in any one year is not known with any precision. There are widely varying estimates of the percentage who don’t file. The most widely cited rate of 10-12% is based on a study by Robson and Schwartz published in 2020 that analyzed 2015 tax data.
I have previously made use of a simple methodology which Robson and Schwartz mention in their paper but discard. (See this article for an explanation of the methodology.) This produces a percentage which is much lower but also closer to figures estimated by Laurin. What I show below is that, even using my very conservative estimate, the percentage of non-filers the CRA reported as responding to this intervention was incredibly low when compared with estimates for the over all number of people who did not file in any of the relevant years.
For an explanation as to why the results were so insignificant, see this article.
Dubious causality
The CRA made the claim that some people filed their returns because they received these letters. (In fact, that was the whole point of this initiative.)
However, the CRA never made a comparison which could have enhanced the credibility of this initiative. The CRA could also have reported on the number of non-filers from the previous tax season who did not receive a letter from the CRA (perhaps because the postal address on file was known to be wrong) but who nevertheless filed a return in the next tax season. Comparing the filing rate of this latter group with that of the recipients of non-filer benefits letters might have revealed little difference between the two groups. In such a case, one could have concluded that a letter from the CRA was not a decisive factor in filing a return. But such a result would have undermined confidence that the non-filer benefits letters were playing any causal role.
Instead, the CRA made no comparison; it simply reported on the filing rate of the group that received the letters and claimed the credit for this. However, it could simply have been coincidental that letter recipients happened to file a return in the next tax season. Without more rigorous study of this initiative, we will never know.
Keeping up with the times
Note that in June 2025, when the CRA’s Departmental Plan for 2025-26 was published, there was already some scepticism around this results indicator as the indicator was given but the target was not available as the indicator was under review.
In January 2026, when the CRA’s Departmental Results Report for fiscal year 2024-25 was published, no information was given for the relevant result indicator because the “Action related to the Non-Filer Benefit Letters was removed. The CRA’s efforts associated with the Non-Filer Benefit Letter Program have been incorporated into the CRA’s automatic tax filing initiatives. As part of a pilot, the CRA is offering simplified filing solutions (phone, digital and paper) to individuals who have never filed a tax return or have a gap in their filing history. New performance measures will be determined following the evaluation of the pilot results.”