When even the CRA doesn’t understand the rules, what chance do you have?
OTTAWA, Ont. — The Canadian Taxpayers Federation (CTF) demands immediate action to simplify the tax code after the Auditor General reported the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) only gets individual income tax questions right 17 per cent of the time.
“When individual Canadians are asking questions about their taxes, they’re only getting the right answer from the CRA 17 per cent of the time,” said Franco Terrazzano, CTF federal director. “Even when people are asking the CRA about business taxes, it’s a coin flip on whether they will get the right answer, and even then, Canadians aren’t getting a full response.
Franco Terrazzano
“The fact that the CRA is providing the wrong information so often is proof that nobody understands the impossibly complicated rules and the government needs to simplify the tax code.”
The Auditor General report found that “Responses to general individual-tax questions were accurate only 17 per cent of the time.” The report also found that the CRA’s responses on business taxes were accurate just 54 per cent of the time. Even then, the Auditor General said the “completeness of response” was only 31 per cent.
The Income Tax Act is about 3,600 pages, roughly the same length as the entire seven-book Harry Potter series.
“The Income Tax Act has become so long and complex that virtually no one can understand it,” Terrazzano said. “Hiring more bureaucrats to give even more wrong answers won’t actually fix the problem. The real solution is to simplify the tax code.”
The Auditor General also found Canadians were only able to get a CRA agent on the phone 32 per cent of the time in 2024-25. Just 18 per cent of callers reached an agent within 15 minutes or less. This is despite the CRA employing 4,547 contact centre agents in 2024-25, an increase of more than 1,000 since 2019-20.
“When the pitcher, batter, catcher, umpires and video replay officials all have no idea what the call should be, that means it’s time to fix the rule book,” Terrazzano said. “The Auditor General report shows that taxpayers don’t understand what’s going on and neither do the tax collectors because the rules are impossibly complex. The government needs to change the rule book by simplifying the tax code.”
For more information or to schedule interviews, please contact:
Franco Terrazzano
Federal director
Canadian Taxpayers Federation
[email protected]
403-918-3532
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