Canada’s Taxpayers’ Ombudsman has received a slew of complaints related to the Canada Child Tax Benefit program, and is recommending that the Canada Revenue Agency take steps to help Canadians better understand the program’s requirements.

In a report released on Monday, Taxpayers’ Ombudsman Paul Dubé identifies a number of issues with the CCTB, which is tax-free monthly benefit that helps families with the costs of raising children.

Since the Office of the Taxpayers’ Ombudsman commenced operations in February 2008, it has received many complaints from taxpayers related to a lack of clarity around the program’s documentation requirements for establishing CCTB eligibility.

“Essentially, it’s a communications problem,” Dubé said in an interview on Tuesday. “People were just having a hard time to understand what was being asked of them in terms of proof.”

The way the program works, the CRA does not require claimants to prove all the eligibility requirements when applying for benefits. It begins to administer benefits immediately once the application is processed, in order to facilitate timely access to the benefit.

But once a taxpayer has received benefits for some time, the CRA may request proof of such things as the marital status of a parent or the citizenship of the applicant and their spouse.

If the taxpayer is unable to provide the documentation requested, the payment of benefits is suspended, and quite often, the CRA will demand repayment of benefits that had been paid for years.

The Ombudsman’s Office has received complaints that suspension of these benefits, as well as demands for repayment, has caused considerable hardship to families who rely on the CCTB.

“It’s an important issue, because there are 3.1 million Canadian families that receive CCTB,” Dubé said. He adds that in some cases, families are unable to make ends meet without the benefit.

Taxpayers say the problem is they have difficulty obtaining “clear, accurate, and timely information” from the CRA about the documentation required from them in order to have their benefit payments resume.

Increase information available online, Dubé recommends

The report makes several recommendations that it says would make it easier for taxpayers to understand the CCTB eligibility requirements, and Minister of National Revenue Keith Ashfield issued a statement on Monday accepting the recommendations.

“I am pleased to accept and act on the recommendations in this report,” he said.

The recommendations include providing clear examples of the types of documents a taxpayer may submit as proof of eligibility and/or marital status. It suggests that these examples be widely distributed and be readily available on the CRA website.

“Let people know up front what kind of documents they should keep and have on hand for later on,” Dubé said. “Hopefully that would go a long way towards resolving some of these problems.”

Dubé also calls for the CRA’s pamphlet on the CCTB program to include more information on validating eligibility for benefits and credits, and for the CRA to increase the visibility of the pamphlet on its website.

“Increase the amount of information, and have it all together so that when you look at the brochure, most of the information is there, or when you look at the website, most of the information is there in one place,” he said.

Other complaints that the Ombudsman’s Office has received about CCTB relate to a lack of available information about the requirements for temporary shared eligibility, which allows two individuals to share the benefit when they’re sharing the care of an eligible child for a temporary period of time.

The report recommends that information about temporary eligibility and temporary shared eligibility for the benefit be readily available to taxpayers on the CRA website and in applicable publications.

Previous improvements have reduced complaints

The CRA announced some changes to the CCTB program in May 2009, based on previous advice from the Ombudsman. The changes were intended to simplify the CCTB application process and to make it easier for recipients to confirm their living arrangements and marital status for eligibility purposes.

The improvements reduced the number of complaints, but did not completely eradicate them, prompting Dubé to determine that more improvements were necessary.

“What we noticed is that we continued to get complaints,” he said. “The improvements were a step in the right direction. They were effective as far as what they were intended to address, but more could be done to improve the system even more.”

The new recommendations “are designed to go a little bit further in improving this service delivery,” Dubé said.

“These administrative changes will make it easier for parents to meet their obligations in order to receive the benefits to which they are entitled,” Revenue Minister Ashfield said.

IE