More than 100 Canada Revenue Agency employees fired for misconduct and CERB payments

The Canada Revenue Agency's national headquarters in Ottawa on June 28, 2024. (THE CANADIAN PRESS/Sean Kilpatrick)

The Canada Revenue Agency recorded 370 cases of employee misconduct last year that included insubordination, time theft, inappropriate workplace behaviour and the unauthorized access of taxpayer information.

According to the CRA, 266 of these misconduct cases resulted in employee discipline, including 25 terminations and more than 150 suspensions without pay.

An additional 78 CRA employees were also terminated for fraudulently applying for and receiving Canada Emergency Response Benefits (CERB) during the COVID-19 pandemic. Since the CRA began investigating inappropriate CERB payments in June 2023, more than 300 of its employees have been fired.

The disciplinary measures were revealed in the CRA’s second Annual Report on Employee Misconduct and Wrongdoing, which was released on Wednesday. The report covers the 2024-25 fiscal year, which runs from April 2024 to the end of March 2025.

The 266 disciplinary measures rendered were a 20 per cent increase over the previous fiscal year, when 222 disciplinary measures were reported, including at least 20 terminations. The 370 founded misconduct cases were also a 15 per cent increase over the 322 reported in 2025.

From sleeping on duty to mishandling funds

While the report doesn’t provide details on specific misconduct cases, it does outline a range of behaviour that led to discipline.

Employees are accused of mishandling calls, sleeping on duty, inappropriate physical contact, receiving CRA funds in personal accounts, using CRA credit cards for personal purchases, violating conflict of interest rules, failing to report known data breaches and sharing their work login credentials with third parties.

Other cases involved unauthorized access to other people’s tax accounts, “ranging from one access to over a hundred — including those of spouses, relatives, friends, former roommates, business partners, deceased individuals and colleagues,” the report stated. Employees also manipulated timesheets to claim as many as 1,352 extra hours, while others created false online meetings to prevent computers from switching off in order to give the impression that they were working.

In addition to termination and suspension, other disciplinary measures included written reprimands, financial penalties and demotion.

“The Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) Annual Report on employee misconduct and wrongdoing reflects our ongoing commitment to accountability, vigilance, and continuous improvement,” the report states. “The CRA investigates all allegations it receives related to questionable or unethical conduct of CRA employees.”

The CRA is the federal agency responsible for collecting taxes and administering benefits. As of March 31, 2025, the CRA had 52,499 employees, making it the largest organization in the federal public service in terms of personnel numbers.

In 2024, Ottawa directed federal departments and agencies to begin creating annual reports on employee misconduct and wrongdoing.

Reports that have already been filed show that hundreds of federal employees have been terminated or disciplined for misconduct at departments and agencies like Statistics Canada, Corrections Canada and the Canada Border Services Agency.