The first and best answer is to do what other countries do, which is prepopulate the tax form, send it out to people and ask them whether it's right, so they have that opportunity.
How did we get here? We started with refundable credits in 1978, when the first child benefit was brought in, and then over time, we brought in the GST credit, child benefits and the Canada workers benefit. It slowly grew until, between 1978 and 2020—you have 42 years—the refundable credit system became a major part of our income security system.
It was always based on this linchpin of filing your taxes, and we haven't really taken a good look at what's involved in doing that. Let me give you one example of where we could simplify things.
We know that anybody who is filing a return where the amount of income they made is below the basic personal amount—which is about $12,000, $13,000 or $14,000—cannot benefit from any non-refundable credits. They cannot benefit from the charitable credit or the medical credit—that sort of thing. Why do we continue to take all those people with those very low incomes through a gauntlet of questions on credits that simply don't apply to them? They can't get them. There's no refund for them. It's like taking a coupon into the grocery store, handing it to the cashier and expecting something in return.
In terms of the prevention of fraud, I think we have a greater opportunity to prevent fraud, because the government, with what it has and what it knows, can tell people what that is and give the tax filer the opportunity to change it. If the tax filer makes a mistake in the return, then you deal with it, but you're dealing with it as an exceptionality as opposed to the rule.
