December 12, 2024
Summary: Host organizations need to collect anonymized client data both to show the impact of their CVITP clinic to their stakeholders and to provide the information needed to improve the CVITP service they are offering.
There are two ways that a host organization can get this data: ask the CRA for it or collect it independently. Last year, we argued the case for why host organizations should ask the CRA for their anonymized client data.
In this article, we recount our own experience earlier this year of helping some host organizations in our area to ask the CRA for the data. We outline some lessons we learned from that experience.
In the spring of 2024, we worked with a coalition of twelve local host organizations to get their data from the CRA. The coalition members jointly wrote to the CRA requesting their data. In turn, the CRA provided the coalition with two data sets which cannot be easily reconciled with each other.
Together, these two data sets provided a more complete picture than was previously available of what is happening with the CVITP locally. This was true especially as host organizations had not been sharing data amongst themselves and, in the few instances where they had, much of the data was incompatible. The CRA data gave a measure of the broad impact within the metropolitan area. This would be of interest to stakeholders, like municipal officials.
But the data did not tell a sufficiently detailed story to make it useful to individual host organizations. The data could not be used to demonstrate the impact of a host organization’s CVITP clinic to its own stakeholders. Similarly, it could not be used to formulate improvements to CVITP service in the neighbourhoods it served.
Host organizations are advised to:
- Only consider writing to the CRA to request its data if the host organization is situated in a large metropolitan area and if other host organizations are also willing to sign onto the same request.
- Be clear as to why it wants this data since the CRA will be unable to provide the data at the level of the individual host organization.
- To analyze the data, line up someone who knows statistics and a fair bit about how the CVITP works.
Host organizations need to collect anonymized client data both to show the impact of their CVITP clinic to their stakeholders and to provide the information needed to improve the CVITP service they are offering.
There are two ways that a host organization can get this data: ask the CRA for it or collect it independently. Last year, we argued the case for why host organizations should ask the CRA for their anonymized client data.
In this article, we recount our own experience earlier this year of helping some host organizations in our area to ask the CRA for the data. We outline some lessons we learned from that experience.
The CRA’s data
In the spring of 2024, we worked with a coalition of twelve local host organizations to get their data from the CRA. The coalition members jointly wrote to the CRA requesting their data. In turn, the CRA provided the coalition with two data sets which cannot be easily reconciled with each other.
The first data set included data only the numbers of returns filed electronically by each host organization within the coalition. These numbers were based on the host organizations’ use of their COINs (CVITP Organization Identification Number). The data was for the 2022 tax filing season, running from January 1 to December 31, 2023. Because they were based on the COIN, the data excluded any returns filed prior to the 2020 tax year (the year starting in which the COIN was included in the UFile software).
The CRA was not able to give any data on the numbers of volunteers working, returns filed on paper or individuals assisted by each host organization within the coalition. The CRA was also unable to give data on the benefits generated for clients at specific host organizations or together for the coalition. Nor was the CRA able to give any aggregated data on the incomes or the ages of the clients at specific host organizations or together for the coalition.
Their explanation for these omissions was as follows. When a volunteer submits a return using EFILE, the CRA system automatically counts the COIN but that’s all. Its system does make any link between the host organization’s COIN and the data in its clients’ returns. Since the CRA does not collect client data at the level of the host organization, it cannot report on it at that level.
The second data set was for the whole of the metropolitan census area in which the coalition of twelve host organizations is situated. It included data on the numbers of: host organizations covered by the data (90 in total), volunteers working with these host organizations, individuals assisted, individuals assisted by age groups, returns filed, returns by income groups, refunds and benefit entitlements generated (subdivided into refunds, Canada Child Benefits together with the provincial child benefit, and other benefits including the GST credit, the Canada Carbon Rebate and any provincial benefit administered by the CRA on behalf of the province). The data was for the 2023 tax filing season running from January 1 to December 31, 2023. At one point in our communications, the CRA hinted that it might, in future, provide this data on its public website but only for large metropolitan areas.
Together, these two data sets provided a more complete picture of what was happening with the CVITP locally than was previously available. This was true especially as host organizations were not sharing data amongst themselves and, in the few instances where they were, much of the data was incompatible. The data gave a measure of the broad impact within the metropolitan area. This would be of interest to stakeholders, like municipal officials.
But the data did not tell a sufficiently detailed story to make it useful to individual host organizations. The data could not be used to demonstrate the impact of a host organization’s CVITP clinic to its own stakeholders. Similarly, it could not be used to formulate improvements to CVITP service in the neighbourhoods it served.
Lessons learned
Here is what we learned from the experience:
- Only consider writing to the CRA to request its data if your host organization is situated in a large metropolitan area and if other host organizations are also willing to sign onto the same request.
- Be clear as to why you want the data since the CRA will be unable to provide the data at the level of the individual host organization.
- To analyze the data, line up someone who knows statistics and a fair bit about how the CVITP works.
Host organizations working together in large metropolitan areas may find the aggregated data useful to demonstrate to key stakeholders in their cities the overall impact of their efforts as a group.
In the medium term, we hope the CRA will indeed move toward making this data freely available online. In the longer term, the CRA should link the COIN to the client returns of the host organization so that host organizations can get the data easily from the CRA.
At present, the third lesson remains a challenge for many host organizations. Given that the data is not readily available at present, there is little reason for host organizations to seek out the expertise to analyse their data. But once the data is available, host organizations will want to build in-house expertise to analyse their own clinic data. This will be important for generating meaningful reports that demonstrate to key stakeholders in their cities the overall impact of their CVITP clinic and for improving their clinic’s service to their community.
In the immediate, there is another way to get this detailed data at the level of the individual host organization. The entrepreneurial host organization can collect the data itself. In fact, some already do. And they have built up their own in-house expertise to analyze the data.
In a forthcoming article, we will give some practical advice on how a host organization can collect and analyse its own data in a relatively simple way while respecting the CRA’s 48 hour rule regarding the deletion of client returns.