Commonwealth – The Canadian government is launching an automated filing system for taxation to assist low-income Canadians and enable them to access government benefits that they are entitled to. Prime Minister Mark Carney announced the new scheme, a major step towards greater accessibility and efficiency in Canada’s tax system and eradicating age-old problems of unclaimed benefits to Canada’s most disadvantaged citizens.
The Office of the Prime Minister states the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) will automatically file taxes for nearly one million low-income Canadians in 2027, the tax year of 2026. The program in 2028 will impact up to 5.5 million Canadians. The program is one of a suite of federal initiatives aimed at digitizing public services, cutting red tape, and modernizing income support programs.
The tax-filing automation bill is the bill that seeks to make lower-income Canadians entitled to receive benefits such as the GST/HST credit, the Canada Child Benefit, and the new Canada Disability Benefit. Most Canadians fail to take advantage of the benefits since they have inadequate funds to file their taxes due to limited digital resources, an absence of information, or complex tax filing. Through automatic submission of returns on behalf of the taxpayers who qualify, the government is attempting to close the gap and maximize efficiency in the provision of benefits. The program will be implemented into law in the federal budget of November 4, 2025. The budget must include necessary information on the implementation of the program, e.g., what is to be done in order to be eligible, the administrative procedure, and coordinating with other provinces and federal ministries.
The move is in line with Ottawa‘s earlier commitment to make the Canadian tax system more convenient and fairer. Auto-tax filing was first proposed in 2023 and later adopted in the fall economic statement of 2024 as a priority project. Besides auto-tax filing, the budget next year will also solidify the National School Food Program as the backbone of Canada’s social welfare safety net.
The program, which is already offering healthy meals to children across the country, will be increased so that as many as 400,000 students will be covered. The program benefits children’s health and education as well as saving grocery receipts for families at home. Two-child families can save as much as $800 per year, the government continued. The project will be implemented in collaboration with provinces, territories, and Indigenous partners so that it can continue to make equal access available to all parts of the country. Amid such good news, the CRA is in the news today due to unacceptable wait times in its call centers and a lack of staff.
Canadians who were attempting to seek assistance from CRA phone hotlines waited much too long, and Finance Minister François-Philippe Champagne responded with a Sept. 2025 mandate for the agency to fix the issues in 100 days. The mandate comes after the federal government imposed blanket public service austerity cuts to reduce the books. At the same time, the Union of Taxation Employees (UTE), which represents CRA employees, has also complained about the agency’s ability to keep services intact following a loss of employment.
UTE initiated an online public campaign, “Canada on Hold,” reminding people how the cuts to staff impact the taxpayers and small businesses. The CRA lost nearly 10,000 jobs since May 2024, said UTE national president Marc Brière. The union argues that the cuts have undermined the quality of service by causing more waiting and delays in response times for inquiries. The government maintains that it remains committed to improving the performance of the CRA and informing Canadians about timely assistance. The electronic tax filing facility will reduce the administrative costs of the taxpayers and CRA to make resources available to serve customers and provide services to vulnerable segments better.
As this new policy takes effect, Canada joins the short list of countries anywhere in the world rolling out big-bang automatic tax filing. This move is part of a far-reaching vision for a fairer, more streamlined, and more inclusive taxation system that promises all Canadians, whether high-income earners or low, and others in between, to derive the best value from the social programs established to assist them.
