Did you know that over 2 million people making less than $80,000 aren’t filing their taxes? These individuals are eligible for but are not receiving important income-boosting federal benefits that were designed to support them including the Canada Child Benefit, the Canada Workers Benefit, and GST rebates to name a few. An estimated $1.7 billion in benefits may not have been paid out to those who they are intended for. This is life changing income. For example, a family of 4 in Alberta living on a low income is eligible for over $20,000 in benefits through tax filing.

During the last election, the Federal government committed to moving towards automatic tax filing for people living on a low income and seniors. For individuals living on a low income 12 percent are not filing their taxes. Automatic tax filing would remove barriers that keep people from having their taxes filed and receiving benefits and access to other important geared to income programs. Currently, almost half of tax returns completed for individuals making less than $25,000 were completed by a private tax preparer with an estimated fee of $155 creating a paywall between individuals and income tested benefits that require a completed notice of assessment.

It is important that the CRA hears from community in this consultation. The Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) has released a consultation on automatic tax filing. We would love your support in completing the CRA consultation to advocate for automatic tax filing. We have already drafted responses that you can use, you’re welcome to copy and paste our responses or use them as a starting point for drafting your own. We encourage you each to complete the consultation (limited to one submission per device) and to invite your colleagues and peers to do so as well. Our goal is to communicate consistent messaging with the CRA to best advocate for the adoption of automatic tax filing for folks living on a low income.

The CRA is accepting responses until October 9, 2025

For more information we have a full brief published on our website “Automatic Tax Filing for Social Assistance Recipients”

And a shorter one-pager which summarizes this brief “The Benefits of Automatic Tax Filing”

Please reach out if you have questions or comments, publicpolicy@momentum.org

If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to reach out (publicpolicy@momentum.org) and please feel free to forward these resources along to others!