QUESTION PERIOD — Finance
Income Tax
March 20, 2024
My question is for the Government Representative in the Senate. Senator Gold, it’s tax season. Tax experts will be called upon in the coming weeks to help Canadians file their taxes. But we also know that up to 12% of Canadians currently do not file their tax returns — which is why, since 2018, the Canada Revenue Agency, or CRA, has been delivering the SimpleFile service, allowing Canadians to auto‑file their tax returns over the phone.
Budget 2023 announced that the service will be expanding so that 2 million Canadians will now be eligible. In 2022, only 53,000 tax returns were filed using this service.
Five years into the program, what assessment has been made by the CRA on the success of SimpleFile? Do we have any idea of the cost of running this program? What investments will be needed as it expands in the coming years?
Thank you for your question. Though I don’t have specific information about what audits or reviews are currently under way, I can tell you, senator, that already — in the period between February 5, 2024, to March 18, 2024 — over 18,000 people have filed their taxes using SimpleFile by phone. It’s an important program, and one that we hope Canadians will take full advantage of. It helps especially lower-income individuals access the benefits and the credits to which they would be entitled by filing in a more simplified manner.
Thank you for that answer. What is the agency’s most recent estimation of the number of Canadians who don’t file their taxes? Is there a breakdown by province? Do we know how many would be eligible for these benefits? The issue of non-tax filers has been raised often at our National Finance Committee, especially with respect to lower-income Canadians who might be missing out on valuable benefits that they are entitled to, such as the Canada Child Benefit or the Guaranteed Income Supplement.
The only information I have — which is not, perhaps, as up to date as I would hope — is that about 12% of Canadians do not file their tax returns. I’m not aware of any updated estimates, and I don’t have any information, unfortunately, with regard to the breakdown by province.
