Taxpayers’ Ombudsperson announces examination into Canada Revenue Agency delays in processing complex T1 adjustment requests

OTTAWA, June 11, 2026 – The Taxpayers’ Ombudsperson, Mr. François Boileau, has opened a systemic examination into delays taxpayers are experiencing when the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) determines that a T1 adjustment is complex.

OTTAWA, June 11, 2026 – The Taxpayers’ Ombudsperson, Mr. François Boileau, has opened a systemic examination into delays taxpayers are experiencing when the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) determines that a T1 adjustment is complex.

If a taxpayer wants to change an income tax and benefit return, there are different options to do so. The CRA’s service standard for routine adjustments requested through Change my return in their CRA account or through their tax software is to issue a notice of reassessment or a letter of explanation within two weeks of receiving the request. For routine adjustment requests made by phone or mail, the service standard is eight weeks.

However, the CRA can determine that a request is complex. This happens when the CRA needs more information or has to review the request. In these cases, the service standard is 20 weeks—much longer than the service standard for routine requests.

We opened this examination because we have been receiving a consistently high level of complaints about delays in processing T1 adjustment requests. According to the CRA’s own reporting, taxpayers are facing undue delays. Although the CRA’s service standard for complex requests is 20 weeks, as of May 14, 2026, the CRA has been taking up to 47 weeks.

In addition to opening this systemic examination, we sent a service improvement request to the CRA. We asked it to change the T1-ADJ T1 Adjustment Request web page to encourage taxpayers to file their T1 adjustment requests online, rather than by printing and mailing the webform as suggested on its website, so that the requests can be processed more quickly.