The CRA Isn’t Understaffed. It’s Underperforming.

This week the CRA sent job-risk notices to 735 people, and Ottawa’s union reps are already warning about service collapse. Here’s what nobody in that debate wants to say out loud: per person, the CRA is one of the most heavily staffed tax agencies in the developed world, and it…

By Main AdminOct 29, 20267 min read

The CRA Isn’t Understaffed. It’s Underperforming.

What happened

Patsy Lajoie lives in Pintendre, near Lévis. She's Québécoise and semi-retired. In January, the Canada Revenue Agency sent her a notice of reassessment for 2019 demanding a little over $10,000. The CRA said she had over-contributed to her TFSA, and it reached that conclusion by treating her as an immigrant (Le Journal de Québec).

Then the notices kept coming: 2020 the next week, 2021 in February, and on through 2025. The last one, dated February 24, 2026, put the total at $60,024.66, due March 16 (Le Journal de Québec).

When she called, an agent confirmed she was "coché" (checked) as an immigrant in CRA's system. The agent said the error came from the Jonquière tax centre, then admitted that staff couldn't correct it. They also couldn't tell her who could. "C'est un cul-de-sac," she told the paper. It's a dead end (Le Journal de Québec).

The part that should make you angry: CRA couldn't fix its own data entry error, but it had no trouble sending her to collections. Since August 21, she says, government collections has been calling her every day at work. She was told the next step, if she doesn't pay, is freezing her bank accounts. When the Journal asked the CRA about it, the CRA hadn't answered by press time (Le Journal de Québec).

This wasn't a one-off

Two weeks later the same paper reported a second Pintendre case. Anne Gasnier, a nurse who came from France in 2015 and became a Canadian citizen in 2024, sent CRA proof of citizenship so she could get the Canada Child Benefit for her newborn. An agent recorded her as having immigrated in 2024, and "the system recalculated everything." Instead of a tax refund she got a bill for just over $5,000: a TFSA over-contribution penalty, a demand to repay two CCB cheques, and her CCB cut off (Le Journal de Québec).

The couple spent months going from agent to agent. Every agent gave a different explanation and asked for more proof. Her file was finally corrected only after the newspaper and her MP, Dominique Vien, got involved (Le Journal de Québec). The Journal says it reported a near-identical case last November: a mother wrongly labelled an immigrant and billed more than $60,000 (Le Journal de Québec).

So that's three families, the same miscoding and the same dead end. In at least one case, the only thing that worked was a reporter and a Member of Parliament. That isn't a tax system working. It's a tax system you can only get through with media coverage.

Why this matters to you, right now

On October 5, the Taxpayers' Ombudsperson asked the House Finance Committee to take a hard look at Bill C-31. The bill would allow "deemed filing," where the CRA files a return on someone's behalf "without the taxpayer's consent or involvement" (Office of the Taxpayers' Ombudsperson).

The Ombudsperson's concerns are specific. The bill sets no date by which people must be notified or by which returns get filed, so benefits could be interrupted. The eligibility rules eventually push participants out of the program. And the Ombudsperson says safeguards are needed "to ensure taxpayer information is accurate before benefit payments are issued" (Office of the Taxpayers' Ombudsperson).

Read that last concern again with Patsy Lajoie in mind. Accurate taxpayer information is exactly what CRA didn't have, and couldn't fix, in her case.

The Ombudsperson's brief says "only a small number of individuals will benefit from deemed filing" and argues the program shouldn't go ahead as designed. One University of Sherbrooke tax professor called the three-years-in, then-kicked-out structure "a really bad design" (Canadian Affairs). Another expert pointed out that the CRA may not know whether someone has moved or had a change in marital status between filings, and both of those affect benefit entitlement (Canadian Affairs).

In fairness, simpler filing is a good goal, and the Ombudsperson supports it through the pre-filled return service launching in March 2027, where you review and approve your return yourself (Office of the Taxpayers' Ombudsperson). The issue isn't automation. The issue is giving more unilateral power to an agency that can't reliably fix its own mistakes.

The pattern

None of this is new:

Complaints are surging. The Ombudsperson received 3,558 complaints in 2025–26, up 27% and the most in three years. Complex T1 adjustments were taking up to 50 weeks against a published 20-week standard (The Hub).
MPs are hearing it too. On October 7, York–Durham MP Jacob Mantle told the House the CRA "shows no quarter to average Canadians while it regularly fails at its own metrics." He described a constituent who estimated it would take "18 months and thousands of dollars to file the necessary objections to get the CRA to correct its very own obvious mistake." His question is the right one: "who should pay when the CRA makes a mistake and costs taxpayers money?" (openparliament.ca).
Coding errors have happened before. The Ombudsperson once had to investigate the CRA for wrongly coding living taxpayers as deceased (Office of the Taxpayers' Ombudsperson).
The courts keep catching basic failures. In Shaker v. The King, 2026 TCC 63, the Tax Court let a taxpayer challenge reassessments years later because the CRA hadn't sent the notices to the address it properly had on file (Taxpage). In Liu v. The King, 2026 TCC 126, the court struck CRA pleadings that tried to bring in a new offshore theory never used at reassessment. The court said CRA can't "reassess by stealth through its reply" (Legal 500)).

The pattern is always the same. When the CRA gets something wrong, fixing it is your job, it takes as long as it takes, and you pay for it. When you get something wrong, there are penalties, interest at 7% and a collections agent calling your office.

What you can do

Object, and don't miss the deadline. A notice of objection is your formal legal right to dispute an assessment. For most individuals the deadline is the later of 90 days after the notice date or one year after the filing due date. File it through My Account or on Form T400A.
Ask about collection limits. For many income tax assessments, filing an objection limits collection action while the dispute is open. Ask a professional whether that applies to your assessment, and tell collections in writing that the amount is under dispute.
Put it in writing and keep records. Write down every call: date, time, the agent's ID and what they told you. If an agent admits it's a CRA error, as one did with Lajoie, record that.
Escalate the service failure. File a CRA service complaint (Form RC193). If it isn't resolved, go to the Office of the Taxpayers' Ombudsperson. The Taxpayer Bill of Rights includes the right to accurate information, to complete and timely service and to be treated professionally.
Call your MP. It shouldn't be necessary, but Anne Gasnier's file got fixed after her MP intervened.
Tell your MP what you think of Bill C-31's deemed filing provisions while the Finance Committee is still studying them.

The bottom line

In our view, an agency that can't remove a wrong checkbox, but can send a semi-retired Quebecer to daily collections calls over it, hasn't earned the right to file anyone's taxes without their consent. Fix the basics first. Then come back and talk about automation.

Has the CRA miscoded you, lost your file, or sent you to collections over its own mistake? Submit your story to CRA Uncovered. Anonymous submissions are welcome.

Sources

CRA Uncovered is an independent informational platform and is not affiliated with the Canada Revenue Agency. This article is for general information only and is not professional tax or legal advice. Opinions expressed are those of CRA Uncovered.