Introduction

This Summary of the Corporate Business Plan 2005-2006 to 2007-2008 is presented at a pivotal time for the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA). In our first five years as an agency, we have successfully altered and strengthened our governance regime and modernized our internal administration. At the same time, we have demonstrated strong leadership with our service agenda and offered the potential for significant additional efficiencies for the Government of Canada. The recommendations of the Expenditure Review Committee of Cabinet will challenge us to find further internal savings and re-focus our own priorities.

With these steps taken, and with the completion of the transfer of our customs program to the Canada Border Services Agency, we will now focus on achieving our two strategic outcomes:

• Taxpayers meet their obligations and Canada’s revenue base is protected; and
• Eligible families and individuals receive timely and correct benefit payments contributing to the integrity of Canada’s income security system.

Our Plan is organized to reflect changes in our Strategic Framework, which resulted from our negotiations with the Treasury Board Secretariat under the Management Resources and Results Structure (MRRS). This new structure will be utilized by all federal departments and agencies beginning in April 2005. The new Strategic Framework for the CRA is illustrated in Exhibit 1.

The biggest change under MRRS is the focus on program activities serving our tax and benefit strategic outcomes. Our Corporate Business Plan 2005-2006 to 2007-2008 organizes key initiatives, budgets and performance indicators and targets by program activities. Corporate services expenses, such as those for information technology and human resources administration, have been proportionately allocated to our core program activities.

This Summary of the Corporate Business Plan outlines our strategic priorities as an agency, as well as the key initiatives and expected results for each of our program activities. It also identifies the resources needed to achieve our strategic outcomes.

Exhibit 1: Strategic Framework

Financial Spending Profile

The CRA has a projected $3.1 billion planned spending budget for the 2005-2006 fiscal year. The division of this budget by program activity is displayed in Exhibit 2.

The CRA faces challenges over the planning period in sustaining the integrity of existing core activities. At the same time, we need to pursue a number of promising opportunities to enhance service to individuals and businesses, lower the overall costs of government, and target specific compliance risks.

We have been successful in recent years in implementing productivity improvements and in realigning the Agency’s budget from lower to higher priority programs. These re-allocation opportunities have enabled the Agency to both manage the increasing volume and complexity of tax transactions and facilitate the introduction of service enhancements.

The Agency will remain aggressive in its identification of internal re-allocation opportunities so that we can meet our obligations to the government’s re-allocation initiative and at least partially fund new internal requirements and priorities. However, we hope to reach an agreement on a resourcing arrangement to compensate for the non-discretionary annual growth in transactional volumes.

Exhibit 2: Spending Profile by Program Activity

Exhibit 3: FTE and Resource Planned Spending Summary by Program Activity

Date modified:

2005-03-24