With regard to the Canada Revenue Agency’s (CRA) practice of withholding transfer or benefit payments from the Government of Canada or provincial or territorial governments to taxpayers who owe taxes payable (tax debts), and instead applying the balances of such payments to such tax debts: (a) for 2016, 2017, and 2018, broken down by year, how many federal transfer or benefit payments were applied to tax debts; (b) for each year in (a), how many provincial or territorial transfer or benefit payments were applied to tax debts; (c) which federal transfer or benefit payments may CRA withhold and apply to tax debts; (d) which provincial or territorial transfer or benefit payments may CRA withhold and apply to tax debts; (e) which, if any, federal or provincial or territorial transfer or benefit payments are exempt from withholding and application to tax debt; (f) for each year in (a) what total amount of overall transfer or benefit payments did CRA withhold and apply to tax debts; (g) for each year in (a), how many transfer or benefit payments did CRA withhold and apply to tax debts before the deadline for paying taxes owing; (h) is the practice in (g) of withholding and applying transfer or benefit payments to tax debts before the deadline for paying taxes owing legal; (i) if the practice in (g) of withholding and applying transfer or benefit payments to tax debts before the deadline for paying taxes owing is legal, which section of which statute permits it; (j) for each year in (a) in which CRA withheld and applied transfer or benefit payments to tax debts before the deadline for paying taxes owing, how many tax debts to which such payments were applied did taxpayers pay in full by or on the deadline, such that an overpayment resulted; (k) for each year in (a), how many overpayments in (j) did CRA refund to the applicable taxpayers; and (l) for each year in (a), how many transfer or benefit payments which CRA withheld and applied to a tax debt which resulted in an overpayment in (j) did CRA retain to apply to taxes owing in the future?
In the House of Commons on June 11th, 2018. See this statement in context.