Active presence of immigrants in Canada: Recent trends in tax filing and employment incidence

Interesting and relevant way to measure integration and assess emigration rates. Findings make intuitive sense:

…Increased tax-filing rates of immigrants across arrival cohorts

The tax-filing rate in the first full year is a key indicator of immigrant retention, as an earlier study found that over half of immigrants who emigrated did not file income tax in their first year after arrival. This suggests that many immigrants make decisions about leaving shortly after immigration (Aydemir & Robinson, 2008).

Among immigrants aged 20 to 54 at landing, the rate of filing an income tax return in the first full year after landing remained stable from the 1990-to-1994 cohort to the 2000-to-2004 cohort. However, it increased for cohorts that arrived since the mid-2000s (Table 1). About 90% of the 2015-to-2019 and 2020 cohorts filed a tax return in the first full year after immigration, compared with 85% among the 2005-to-2009 cohort. …

The rise in first-year tax-filing rates since the mid-2010s was widespread, spanning both men and women, age groups, educational levels, official language profiles, and most source regions. This increase was also observed across admission programs, except for a slight decline among immigrants in the Provincial Nominee Program (PNP) from the 2010-to-2014 cohort to the 2020 cohort. 

The tax-filing rate in the fifth year after immigration increased steadily from the 1990-to-1994 cohort to the 2010-to-2014 cohort. Again, this uptrend was observed across immigrants with diverse sociodemographic backgrounds. However, among PNP immigrants, the filing rate in the fifth year remained relatively stable from the 2000-to-2004 cohort onward, following a decline from the 1995-to-1999 cohort. Additionally, there was a marginal decrease among immigrants from Northern Europe in the 2010-to-2014 cohort.

The tax-filing rate in the 10th year after immigration was higher among immigrants who arrived in the 2000s than among those who arrived in the 1990s. However, there was minimal change between those who arrived in the early 2000s and the late 2000s. These trends remained consistent across immigrants with various sociodemographic characteristics.

Tax-filing rates, specifically in the 5th and 10th years after immigration, were generally lower among immigrants in the Federal Skilled Worker Program and Canadian Experience Class, compared with family class immigrants and refugees. These rates were also relatively lower among immigrants with graduate degrees and those originating from the United States, and Northern and Western Europe. The literature suggests that highly skilled immigrants are more mobile and tend to explore better opportunities in the international labour market or return to their home countries when they cannot fully utilize their skills in the destination country (Aydemir & Robinson, 2008)….

Source: Active presence of immigrants in Canada: Recent trends in tax filing and employment incidence