Validating Your Eligibility for Benefits and Credits

The Canada Revenue Agency has a responsibility to all taxpayers to ensure that child and family benefits and credits are correctly calculated and paid to the proper individual.

1. Why validate your eligibility for benefits and credits?
2. Have you received a validation letter or a validation questionnaire?
3. Why me?
4. What information is validated?

1. Why validate your eligibility for benefits and credits?
The validation process is designed to maintain the integrity of child and family benefits and credits programs. It also helps to inform and educate individuals about their eligibility and entitlement.

2. Have you received a validation letter or a validation questionnaire?
Letters and questionnaires are sent to ensure that the information we have about you is correct and up to date. If you have received a letter and questionnaire, it is important that you respond. Without your reply, our information about you cannot be validated for accuracy. If that is the case, you may not be getting the right amount of benefits and credits, and in some cases, your benefits and credits may be cancelled, or the payments you have already received may have to be repaid. We are committed to ensuring that you are informed of the results of our review within 60 days after we receive the information requested from you.

3. Why me?
Our goal is to ensure that the right benefit entitlement is paid to the right individual. We accomplish this by conducting reviews to identify possible areas of non-compliance. Our reviews may decrease or increase a recipient's benefits depending on their individual circumstances.

4. What information is validated?
We validate:

• marital status;
• child information; and
• residency and citizenship information.