You can count Joseph Barzyk among those who swear by the two constants in life: Death and taxes. The yearly arrival of the latter is somewhat a source of comfort for the Carleton University business accounting alumnus.
“I’ve always enjoyed doing my own taxes,” Barzyk said, who now works at McCay Duff LLP, an Ottawa-based accounting firm.
Barzyk was one of the tax specialists volunteering Saturday afternoon at the Sprott Tax Students’ Association’s in-person clinic, where dozens of students, young professionals and local community members attended to file their taxes.
Tax season in Canada, which usually runs between late February until the end of April, is often marked with fear and anxiety for many, according to Barzyk, who attended the event to appease that anxiety.
But underneath that fear there is also a sense of community that often goes overlooked.
“You’re in a room of people and other volunteers that are in the same boat as you and are like, ‘Oh my God, I need help with my taxes,’ and so there’s this sense of belonging,” said Brianna Yeung, co-president of the Sprott Tax Students’ Association, which organized the week-long in-person tax clinic for Carleton University students and Ottawa residents.
Saturday, March 28 marked the last day for the free service.
The program, which was organized by Yeung and Kaleb Denning, the other co-president of the association, helped people file more than 300 tax returns this year.
It was Lazourd Alnashed’s first time filing her taxes on campus. It was also her first time filing them herself. For the third-year Carleton journalism and business student, the process took no more than half an hour.
Aside from the sense of independence she had felt, Alnashed said services like these are not always accessible for community members who need it the most, adding that her father would often pay between $70 and $100 to get taxes done for her and her family.
“This is not a luxury,” she said. “This is something you need to do as a citizen and as someone who lives in Canada.”
The association gets its funding from the Community Volunteer Income Tax Program (CVITP) grant. The federal government-provided fund is available for community organizations that host free tax clinics and mobilize volunteers to help people with a modest income and simple tax situations.
Yeung said the amount of funding they get depends on the returns they file each year.
In 2025, the association was able to go out into the community to expand its target clients. It visited communities at the Riverside United Church and Blackburn Hamlet Community Hall to give back to the larger Ottawa community. Denning said they helped file over 600 returns that year. Due to some planning issues, the association decided to stick to Carleton grounds in 2026.
“We started (in 2021) with just students, and throughout the years we expanded because we noticed that there was a demand for people to get taxes done,” Denning said.
Over at the Ottawa Chinese Alliance Church on Bank Street and Arlington Avenue, organizers identified the same need for the service within the Ottawa community. What began as a program targeting the Ottawa-Chinese population opened up to the larger public.
Ellen Hung, a member of the church and one of the three founding organizers for the free tax clinic, said the service is marking its 20th year.
The program started small and initially only targeted the Chinese community, according to Hung. “But then we found that not only Chinese people came to the service,” Hung said. “There’s a lot of people, including immigrants, refugees and seniors, from the community.”
Last year, Hung said they helped file over 1,000 tax returns for community members. Their virtual service this year has helped them expand operations beyond in-person walk-in tax clinics.
Barzyk said on top of being a source of anxiety, taxes are also mandatory, but often times inaccessible to lower-income communities.
At larger tax firms, getting personal taxes done can cost up to a $1,000, Barzyk said. Alternatives like H&R Block, which most students and young professionals opt for due to its cheaper rates, still come with a price tag of up to $100.
“We talked about rates that firms charge, and that’s definitely not available for everyone,” he said.
But filing taxes is not only an act of compliance with the Canadian Revenue Agency.
“You need to file those taxes, especially when it could be important for you to get benefits,” Barzyk said, adding that the groups that need it the most are often the ones that don’t get the support.
“You go through school and you learn all these skills … you might as well use them to help people,” Barzyk said.
Hung said many of their clients also seek out their services because they rely on tax returns, including the Old Age Security benefits or the childcare fee subsidies for low-income families.
“Very often, our clients are seniors, students and individuals with low income,” Hung said, adding that people would often pay up to $100 to get their taxes done but only get $60 to $80 in return.
“Some of our clients are not able to afford that kind of money.”
