Section 3 – Introduction to the Canada Revenue Agency

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The Canada Revenue Agency's (CRA) Collections Program:

collects accounts receivable for all taxes, levies, duties, and other accounts administered by the CRA, including amounts withheld in trust on behalf of the Crown;
prevents and/or deters taxpayer non‑compliance and ensures early resolution of accounts prior to entry into more resource intensive collection workflows through the use of automated operations and remittance strategies; and
provides collections services to other federal departments and provincial governments (including, but not limited to, defaulted Canada Student Loans, Employment Insurance overpayments, and Canada Pension Plan overpayments).

The Canada Revenue Agency is committed to responsible enforcement in order to preserve the integrity of Canada's tax base and to protect the interests of the Crown.
The CRA's collection policies seek to resolve issues in a mutually satisfactory way. Taxpayers are encouraged to contact us and work with us to create suitable payment arrangements based on their ability to pay.
The CRA makes every effort to reach a mutually acceptable payment arrangement before proceeding with garnishment or other forms of legal action to satisfy the debt, such as seizure of properties and assets.
The CRA is sensitive to cases of hardship. Taxpayer Relief provisions are used wherever possible to provide eligible taxpayers with relief of interest and penalties.
Responsible stewardship of the CRA debt management portfolio means:
- Maximizing recoveries.
- Writing off unrecoverable accounts when appropriate.

The Collections Program is addressing the growth of the tax debt through its transformation agenda; incorporating enhanced business intelligence and analytics, and through the use of risk-based approaches:

Managing Tax Debt

Intake Avoidance	Service	Enforcement
Encouraging compliance and assisting taxpayers who want to pay in order to avoid and/or quickly resolve new debt. Approach: Providing taxpayers with reminders with tailored messaging to comply. Making it easier for taxpayers to pay early or on filing.	Working with taxpayers who cannot pay in order to avoid undue financial hardship and reduce bad debt Approach: Educating taxpayers through websites and videos. Negotiating payment arrangements in line with taxpayers' ability to pay.	Compelling those who are unwilling to pay in order to ensure they meet their obligations Approach: Providing legal warning letters. Conducting investigations and gathering third party information. Taking enforcement actions.

An uncollectible debt is an amount that the CRA is unable to collect for a number of reasons, such as:
- collection avenues have been exhausted;
- the debt cannot be located; or
- the debtor does not have the ability to pay.
Under specific legal requirements, uncollectible debts can be written off to remove them from the CRA's inventory, under the authority of the Financial Administration Act.
The CRA has multiple delegated authority levels to approve debt write-offs.
Writing off a debt does not forgive or extinguish the legal right of the CRA to collect the debt, nor does it release the debtor from the obligation to pay.

Write-offs

Fiscal Year	Amount Collected ($B)	Write-offs ($B)	Total ($B)
2014-2015	49.5	3.0	52.5

Priorities Moving Forward

Initiative	Description
Intake Avoidance	Facilitate access to, and encourage/promote use of, self-serve payment options to assist taxpayers who want to pay.
Leverage Business Intelligence for Workload Management	Use business intelligence and data-mining techniques to better understand trends, identify risks, predict taxpayer behaviour, and distinguish between deliberate non-compliers and those who owe but cannot pay.
Enhance Enforcement Actions	Modernize collection procedures and workflows to emphasize the requirement for timely, appropriate, thorough, and progressive collections action.
Aggressive Tax Planning and Offshore Non-Compliance	Advance initiatives outlined in the Collections program's strategy and work plan focused on combatting aggressive tax planning and offshore non-compliance.
International Best Practices	Ongoing engagement with other tax administrations on benchmarking, best practices, and future initiatives related to debt management.