CRA Received Record Number of Complaints in Past Fiscal Year: Taxpayers’ Ombudsman

The Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) headquarters the Connaught Building in Ottawa on Aug. 17, 2020. (The Canadian Press/Sean Kilpatrick)

The number of complaints levied against the Canada Revenue Agency in the past fiscal year set a new record high, according to Taxpayers’ Ombudsperson Francois Boileau, who said complaints against the federal agency are mostly related to individuals trying to obtain COVID-19 related benefits.

“The 2021–2022 fiscal year is yet another banner year for our office. Our team has received more complaints than ever before,” Boileau told reporters in Ottawa on Dec. 13.

“Our office received a total of 3,847 complaints, an increase of more than 70 percent or twice the number of pre-pandemic complaints.”

Boileau presented his annual report to Parliament, which noted that over 40 percent of complaints the CRA received were related to the agency’s delays with validating the eligibility of individuals for obtaining COVID-19 federal benefits.

“Some complainants told us that agents were unable to provide a specific timeframe for processing their application, would refuse to identify themselves, or sometimes even hung up on them,” the report says.

Over 43 percent of complainants were from Ontario, while around 19 percent were from Quebec and just over 12 percent from British Columbia.

Boileau wrote that his office contacted the CRA after receiving heavy numbers of complaints about COVID benefit eligibility issues and requested a number of changes to their verification process.

“We gave the CRA the opportunity and time to address this issue, on its own; however, it did not,” he wrote, adding that many complaints indicated the agency took over eight and sometimes 12 weeks to process benefit applications.

COVID Benefits

Canada’s Auditor General Karen Hogan wrote in a recent report tabled in Parliament that about $4.6 billion of the federal government’s COVID relief benefits were collected by individuals who did not meet the eligibility criteria.

“In addition, we estimated that at least $27.4 billion of payments to individuals and employers should be investigated further,” Hogan wrote.

The auditor general said the large number of funds being sent to ineligible recipients was a result of federal departments focusing less on verifying eligibility in favour of devoting more resources to issuing payments quickly.

Employment Minister Carla Qualtrough said her department had a “strong plan” for post-payment verification and is currently in the process of informing ineligible recipients that they must repay the funds they previously collected.

Conservative MP Garnett Genuis recently criticized the government’s methods of releasing the COVID relief subsidies.

“The government made a policy decision not to have an effective pre-disbursement review. It basically relied on an attestation model, an honour system,” Genuis said in the House of Commons on Dec. 13.

However, Qualtrough has said the subsidies helped millions of Canadians and “kept the economy afloat at a time of unprecedented risk.”

“I remain incredibly proud of the way our government responded to the economic and public health challenges of the pandemic.”

Noé Chartier contributed to this report.