Canada Revenue Agency
Tax collection agency
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| May 13 2025 | François-Philippe Champagne appointed as Minister of National Revenue, becoming responsible for overseeing the Canada Revenue Agency's operations and tax and benefit administration. |
| October 16 2024 | Following an internal investigation, the CRA announced that over 330 employees had been terminated from their positions, with an additional 30 employees facing disciplinary measures for CERB benefit misuse. |
| May 6 2024 | Jean-François Fortin appointed as Deputy Commissioner of the Canada Revenue Agency. |
| 2023 | The Canada Revenue Agency admitted to paying out $100 million to scammers who were engaged in a sophisticated 'carousel scheme', revealing significant mismanagement of taxpayer funds. |
| 2023 | CRA began an internal investigation into employees who improperly utilized the CERB benefit while being employed at the agency. |
| May 2022 | Federal Court filings disclosed that the CRA granted tax deals to an unnamed major US and Netherlands-based corporation involving transfer pricing allocation of international goods and services. |
| 2020 | During the COVID-19 pandemic, the CRA transitioned to temporary remote work and extended tax filing deadlines for the 2019 tax year. The agency also processed millions of emergency financial benefit applications for Canadians. |
| 2020 | Alberta made a significant corporate tax rate cut from 12% to 8%, raising concerns about potential profit booking by Ontario-based companies to take advantage of lower tax rates. |
| 2020 | Corporation profits in Q1 were $212 billion, showing a decline from previous quarters in 2019. |
| December 2020 | CRA admitted to providing 'unclear' instructions to call centre agents about CERB eligibility, leading to widespread confusion about benefit requirements. |
| December 2 2020 | Canada Emergency Response Benefit (CERB) program officially closed after administering support to nearly 8.5 million Canadians during the COVID-19 pandemic. |
| October 5 2020 | François Boileau was appointed as the Taxpayers' Ombudsperson, reporting directly to the Minister of National Revenue. |
| June 29 2020 | Premier Jason Kenney announced a reduction of the corporate tax rate from 10% to 8%, effective July 1, 2020. |
| June 1 2020 | Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) issued a detailed report on corporate tax rates across provinces and territories, outlining three distinct tax levels: small business, manufacturing and processing, and general income businesses. |
| April 1 2020 | Nova Scotia reduced its lower corporate tax rates from 3% to 2.5% and its higher rate from 16% to 14%, with these rates applying to income earned in the Nova Scotia offshore area. |
| January 1 2020 | Prince Edward Island further reduced its lower income tax rate from 3.5% to 3%, effective January 1st. |
| January 1 2020 | Ontario further reduced its corporate tax lower rate to 3.2%, while maintaining a basic income tax rate of 11.5%. |
| 2019 | 90.3% of Canadian taxpayers filed their tax returns electronically, marking a significant shift towards digital tax filing methods. Only 9.7% of taxpayers continued to use traditional paper filing methods. |
| 2019 | Canada Revenue Agency opened three Northern Service Centres in Whitehorse (Yukon), Yellowknife (Northwest Territories), and Iqaluit (Nunavut) to provide tax services and assistance to residents in the northern territories, co-located with existing Service Canada offices. |
| 2019 | End of the 42nd Canadian Parliament, marking the conclusion of the period when income splitting provisions were addressed. |
| 2019 | Total corporate income tax revenues were $50.4 billion, with corporation profits reaching an all-time high of $224.3 billion in Q1 and $297.6 billion for non-financial corporations for the year. |
| 2019 | Mining industry achieved its highest profits in eight years, while the oil and gas industry reached its highest profits in five years. |
| September 2019 | Canada Revenue Agency was criticized for sending nearly 900,000 financial records of Canadian residents to the U.S. Internal Revenue Service, representing a continued significant increase in cross-border financial information sharing. |
| July 1 2019 | Nunavut reduced its lower corporate income tax rate from 4% to 3%, marking a significant change in the territory's tax policy for corporations. |
| January 2019 | New tax rules for Canadian Controlled Private Corporations (CCPCs) were implemented, changing the Refundable Dividend Tax on Hand (RDTOH) system. These rules eliminated the ability of corporations to recover their RDTOH balance through eligible dividends, resulting in increased tax rates for dividend recipients from 6% to 14%, depending on the province. |
| 2018 | CRA had an operating budget of $5.1 billion and employed 54,933 people |
| 2018 | Prince Edward Island reduced its lower income tax rate from 4.5% to 3.5%. |
| 2018 | Ontario reduced its corporate tax lower rate from 4.5% to 3.5%. |
| 2018 | Canadian government introduced new tax rules for Canadian-Controlled Private Corporations (CCPCs) regarding passive income investment, tying Small Business Deduction (SBD) eligibility to investment income earned by associated corporations and preventing tax avoidance through holding companies. |
| 2018 | Manitoba raised its small-business limit from $450,000 to $500,000, aligning with most other provinces and territories in Canada's corporate tax structure. |
| April 1 2018 | New Brunswick reduced its lower corporate income tax rate from 3% to 2.5%, marking a tax rate change for businesses in the province. |
| January 2018 | TOSI (Tax on Split Income) amendments expanded to apply highest individual tax rates to all family members, regardless of age, significantly changing income sprinkling rules for private corporations. |
| January 1 2018 | Saskatchewan became the only province to increase Small Business Deduction (SBD) levels from $500,000 to $600,000. |
| January 1 2018 | Saskatchewan introduced new corporate tax rates, lowering the lower rate to 2% and raising the higher rate to 12%. |
| January 1 2018 | British Columbia increased its higher corporate income tax rate from 11% to 12%. |
| 2017 | Canada Revenue Agency increased financial record sharing, sending 700,000 Canadian residents' financial records to the U.S. Internal Revenue Service. |
| 2017 | CRA collected approximately $430 billion in revenue and administered nearly $34 billion in benefits to Canadians |
| 2017 | Royal Bank of Canada (RBC) published a paper proposing limitations on income sprinkling, including restricting compensation to family members to 'reasonable' levels and limiting claims to the lifetime capital gains exemption. |
| 2017 | A British Columbia Court of Appeal judgment in the Veracity Capital Corporation case became the first appellate-level case addressing a provincial general anti-avoidance rule in Canada. |
| 2017 | Ontario's corporate tax lower rate was 4.5% before reduction. |
| 2017 | Corporate income tax revenues reached $42.2 billion for the fiscal year. |
| August 1 2016 | Bob Hamilton appointed as Commissioner and Chief Executive Officer of the Canada Revenue Agency, taking over leadership of the organization. |
| July 2016 | Canada Child Benefit (CCB) implemented, replacing existing child-related benefit programs and providing non-taxable support for families with children under 17. |
| March 2016 | The Canada Revenue Agency was accused of violating its own policy by offering to waive gross negligence penalties and criminal investigations for wealthy KPMG clients involved in offshore asset transactions, without requiring voluntary disclosure prior to CRA's discovery. |
| 2015 | Start of the 42nd Canadian Parliament under Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, during which the Family Tax Cut act (income splitting) was repealed. |
| 2014 | Canada Revenue Agency sent 150,000 Canadian residents' financial records to the U.S. Internal Revenue Service. |
| 2013 | A Canadian Tax Journal article revealed that approximately $500 million in tax revenue was lost due to the Québec Truffle scheme. |
| January 14 2013 | Andrew Treusch appointed as Commissioner of the Canada Revenue Agency. |
This contents of the box above is based on material from the Wikipedia articles Corporate tax in Canada & Canada Revenue Agency, which are released under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.