Ms. Scoffield, you've written about the automatic tax filing, and you've made a point that I think is very important. The government sometimes calls a tax situation “simple”, but the actual life may be anything but simple. They could be homeless. They may not have reliable access to computers. English or French may not be their first language. They've lost paperwork. Also, some don't trust CRA because of previous experiences.
Bill C-31 proposes now giving CRA considerably more responsibility for preparing returns for some of those people. Knowing of some of the error levels that we're seeing at CRA, I'm very concerned that this could very well be a boondoggle.
If CRA prepares the return and CRA gets it wrong, who carries the consequences? Is it CRA or the vulnerable person whose benefits may be affected?