Administering benefits

Our core business

We contribute to the economic and social well-being of over 20 million Canadians. We administer and issue payments for three core federal programs: the Canada Child Tax Benefit (CCTB), the Goods and Services Tax/Harmonized Sales Tax (GST/HST) credit, and the Children's Special Allowances. We also deliver the Universal Child Care Benefit for Human Resources and Skills Development Canada, the Disability Tax Credit, as well as benefit and credit programs and services for provincial, territorial, and federal government clients. We serve our government clients as well as our benefit recipients by undertaking activities to ensure that individuals are informed about benefits and credits to which they may be entitled.

Over the planning period, we will measure our success in administering benefits by comparing our results against external service standards, Footnote 1 as well as the following performance indicators and targets.

Footnote 1

Our validation programs select CCTB accounts based on specific criteria. As the overall benefit compliance rate is high, a 50% adjustment rate for targeted accounts indicates that our targeting is effective.

Trends and challenges

• Economic slowdowns and difficult times can lead to more Canadians relying on benefits and tax credits for income security, even after recovery is underway.
• Rapid changes in technology and public expectations for e-access at the level that banks provide is a challenge. We must address our aging benefit delivery information technology (IT) infrastructure to continue meeting the evolving expectations of our recipients.
• Having the correct data to determine eligibility for programs and calculate entitlements is essential to ensure that recipients are meeting their obligations and receiving their correct entitlements. Ongoing validations activities, in both prevention and detection, are needed to ensure that the CRA continues to maintain the confidence of benefit recipients and governments.

Over the planning period, we will undertake the following initiatives to address the challenges we face in administering benefits.

Maintain service to benefit recipients

The Automated Benefits Application (ABA) service is one example of a CRA transformational service. Through this co-operative undertaking the CRA receives authorized birth information directly from provincial or territorial vital statistics agencies. This registers Canadian newborns for the benefit programs we administer. Since the ABA service eliminates the need for a separate application, processing time is reduced and recipients get their payments faster.

We will continue our work with provinces and territories that have not yet implemented ABA to promote the integration of the Canada Child Benefits application with the provincial and territorial birth registration process.

Manage partnerships

Our flexibility as an agency and the adaptability that we have built into our systems enable us to lever our federal delivery infrastructure to administer a range of programs and other services for client governments. The fact that most jurisdictions have already opted to use our delivery system strongly suggests that it offers important efficiencies in delivering benefits.

We will maintain the current programs and services administered for federal, provincial, and territorial departments and expand our service and data exchange opportunities where possible, to allow provinces and territories to deliver their programs more efficiently.

Ensure accurate payments

We are responsible for ensuring sound financial stewardship of the benefit and credit programs that we deliver. This means that the right recipients must get the right payments at the right time.

We carry out validation and control activities specifically targeting accounts identified as high-risk for potential overpayments or underpayments. We validate marital status, children's care situations, and addresses. The information we provide to recipients during validation reviews helps to educate them about their eligibility and entitlement requirements. As well, our enforcement presence is enhanced by our successful efforts in moving cases of misrepresentation toward prosecution. We will continue to improve our targeting to achieve greater program effectiveness.

Deliverables

The following table lists the initiative and the associated deliverables that we will undertake over the planning period to administer benefits.

Footnote 1

Please visit www.cra.gc.ca/annualreport for a complete list of CRA external service standards.