April 2025 Poll

I will have to agree with Joe Truscott, CPA
That the CPA Institute of Canada should pursue to have a Royal Commission to investigate CRA.

By Nik Wetsch, CAFM on April 23, 2025

As mentioned there are so many changes its hard to just select one

The CPA Tax Consultation Group has submitted many requests to CRA and the Dept of Finance on this topic over the years

However, the service levels and their degree of backlog and inexperienced individuals answer the phones has to be substantially improved.

I believe it close to asking for a Royal Commission to investigate CRA and how it is every year having serious challenges

Joe Truscott CPA

By JOSEPH A TRUSCOTT CPA on April 18, 2025

There are so many changes that would benefit different groups but as a parent myself it would be great to not only be able to write off the cost of things like day care and summer camp but also fees that are paid for Y memberships, for extra curricular activities that are currently exempt, class that aren’t offered through the school system.

By Anna Fike on April 16, 2025

It is ridiculous that one family, where each spouse earns $50,000, and another, where one spouse earns $30,000 and the other $70,000, pay such a significant difference in income tax. Undoubtedly, fairness is not in place in these situations. While the amount varies by province, the first family takes more money home that they can put towards retirement savings, debt reduction, a child’s education or extra-curricular activities, etc. simply because they earn the $100,000 in a different ratio than the second family.
For a brief time, we had a limited splitting mechanism that addressed this; however, the messaging was dominated by complaints that it benefited some “rich” people without acknowledging how it made the system more fair for many families across Canada.

By Ian Wood on April 16, 2025

Tax calculations for combined family income is not a fair system. very rarely do we see families looking at finances being jointly recorded. what i earn is mine and what you earn is yours. This creates hardship for most women, as they are the ones, most often earning way lower then their spouses.

By ALM on April 11, 2025

The system is broken.  There needs to be changes to make it less complicated but every year it gets more ridiculous. More and more personal information is being collected that is none of their business. The CRA also needs to be overhauled and they need to get back to the office so we can be transferred to senior officials who might know something.  The average person has no clue when it comes to taxes and they do not make it easy to get help.

By Sherrie Blake on April 10, 2025

The tax system is completely broken.  It has been going that way now for several years (about nine).  Every time the government says it is “fixing the system”, they make it more complicated and worse off than it was prior.  The government and the CRA have become so bloated and costly, they need to add on more and more taxes just to pay for it and, at the same time, make it harder and harder for citizens to be able to file there tax returns with any confidence.
Of course it needs to be fixed, but it must be fixed in the right way.

By Robert Litschel on April 09, 2025

Employees must go back to the office to work. Eliminate work from home and add more accountability. Work is not getting done in a reasonable time or at all. These last few years has been very difficult to deal with CRA. I have been doing taxes for 32 years and it has never been as bad as it is now.

By Connie Pettigrew on April 09, 2025

Canadian Tax system is so over built one cannot do Income Tax manually any longer. Despite of so many rules there are loopos for tax avoidance.  First thing needs to be done is to regulate Corporate Income tax.  Any corporation operating on Canadian land should be subject to taxes, no exception and oversees head offices registration where is no income tax.  Next we need to bring all CRA employees back to work, not working from home.  If employee is not at work, place basically is not needed.

By krystyna KLEPINSKA on April 09, 2025

Over 40 years experience, and there is not too many employees at CRA that keep
up to date with all the changes, and if you have issues the majority can not
help you.  I truly would love to visit the location and meet the employees that work
on the taxes and the mini audits just for one day, to view exactly what goes on.

By SUSAN Y MACKIE on April 09, 2025

there should be a basic minimum tax payable for anyone making over $100,000 a year and increased proportunately, so the richer do actually pay their fair share.

By john cavanagh on April 03, 2025

The CRA service is really bad and getting worse. They need to hire more staff, upload forms and get adjustments caught up.
They need to hire people they can train to do the job properly.

By Joanne on April 02, 2025

Simplification would be one of the first orders of business.  Simpler forms with fewer exceptions and carve-outs would make it easier to file taxes, which could give Canadians greater confidence in filing taxes. 

I strongly believe that one of the important changes to make would be to raise the basic personal exemption significantly and index it to take many more lower income folks off the tax rolls. 

Simplifying things would lead to fewer mistakes and decrease the need for investigation and audit, which could help to reduce the size of CRA, reducing the need for the federal government to collect as much in tax revenue.

By Derek T on April 02, 2025

Cut all staff and clean house.  Reducing costs would reduce taxes needed - but that just goes to the whole gov’t not just a branch of it.

By Carla Gibson on April 02, 2025

CRA service is so bad that it seems they are employing anyone is unemployable anywhere else

By Danny Castellarin on April 02, 2025