2016 Serving You Better consultations with small and medium businesses
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2016 Serving You Better consultations with small and medium businesses
The Government of Canada is committed to ensuring tax fairness for all Canadians, and recognizes the importance of small and medium businesses in creating jobs and supporting the economy. That is why it has committed to making the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) a fairer, more service-oriented organization to help support these businesses, while ensuring tax fairness for the middle class.
The Honourable Diane Lebouthillier, Minister of National Revenue is committed to modernizing and simplifying services at the CRA so that they are more helpful and easier to use. As part of this commitment, she launched the CRA’s Serving You Better consultations with small and medium businesses and accountants on October 3, 2016. These consultations created a forum for small and medium businesses and their service providers to share valuable insights that the CRA can use to make its programs and services more streamlined and client-focused.
"Really appreciate CRA is giving us such a platform to give our feedback!!"
Shared by an online participant
How we consulted
For the 2016 Serving You Better consultations, the CRA consulted four ways:
In-person
CRA senior officials met face-to-face with small and medium businesses and accountants in 18 cities across Canada. The CRA partnered with the Canadian Chamber of Commerce and Chartered Professional Accountants (CPA Canada) to host a total of 21 sessions across the country:
- We heard from small and medium businesses in sessions hosted by local chambers of commerce in Whitehorse, Richmond, Yellowknife, Edmonton, Regina, Mississauga, Gatineau, Iqaluit, Moncton, Dartmouth, Charlottetown, and St. John's.
- We heard from accountants in sessions hosted by CPA Canada and their members in Vancouver, Yellowknife, Edmonton, Winnipeg, Toronto, Québec, Ottawa, Iqaluit, and Halifax.
- The Minister of National Revenue attended sessions in Gatineau and Moncton.
Online
Anyone in the business community who wanted to share feedback but could not attend in person or preferred to do so online had the ability to share views using the online tool, CRA Engage.
With key stakeholders
The CRA reached out to key stakeholder associations for suggestions and feedback from their national membership.
With CRA employees
Front-line CRA employees who frequently interact with small and medium businesses identified problem areas and offered targeted solutions. CRA senior officials met with employees in face-to-face sessions in Winnipeg, Regina, Charlottetown and Quebec City and in virtual sessions hosted by videoconference. All CRA employees were able to provide feedback online.
The feedback was constructive. Although you told us that we have made progress, you wanted us to do more. Here are some highlights of what you told us as well as our Serving You Better action plan for 2017 to 2018 and 2018 to 2019. You can track our progress as we complete individual action items.
In total, about 300 individuals participated in the in-person sessions, and about 135 shared their views online or in writing. We received over 1,500 comments and suggestions for improvements to CRA services. Thank you!
Northern residents
In 2017, we will publish a report on the CRA’s 2016 Consultations with Northern Residents that details issues and solutions specific to northern residents.
When the CRA came to Whitehorse, Yellowknife and Iqaluit, you shared your concerns related to taxes and living in the north. We heard your concerns and will tackle issues like the fact that Northern residents don’t have a lot of payment options and it can take a long time to get mail, even though these are not strictly business problems.
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- Date modified:
- 2017-06-27