Our Clients

In fulfilling our mission to contribute to the security and well-being of Canadians, we serve the following main groups:

Tax Clients

We work with over 29 million individuals, businesses, trusts, and organizations. Since our tax system is based on self-assessment and voluntary compliance, the CCRA must help Canadians to understand and respect the rules, fulfil their obligations, and receive their appropriate entitlements. At the same time, to ensure fairness for everyone, we must balance these facilitation activities with responsible enforcement. The levels of tax compliance in Canada continue to be high. Over 90% of all cash receipts are remitted to the CCRA without any enforcement needed.

Customs Clients

While Customs has a direct and immediate relationship with over 98 million travellers and over 170,000 commercial importers each year, our client group extends far beyond the border. In addition to the trade community (importers, exporters, brokers, and business owners) that relies on our consistent and fair application of trade laws and regulations to support Canada's economic growth, our clients include the roughly 30 million Canadians who count on us to ensure that they are safe from external threats to their health, safety, and security.

Benefit Program Recipients

For over 10 million low- and moderate-income individuals and families, programs such as the Canada Child Tax Benefit help supplement their income. Other programs we administer on behalf of provincial and territorial governments also supplement household incomes. By ensuring that these payments go to the right people, on time and in the right amount, the CCRA supports important economic and social policy goals.

Appeals Clients

The CCRA administers one of the Government of Canada's largest dispute resolution processes, allowing clients to exercise their fundamental right to redress in their dealings with the federal government. Over 85,000 individuals and businesses exercised their right to redress this year, with almost $8 billion in income taxes, GST/HST, excise taxes, and customs duties in dispute. Our commitment to a just and impartial system is reinforced through the Fairness Initiative, legislation introduced in the early 1990s that provides relief to clients in circumstances beyond their control, as well as the Voluntary Disclosures Program, which gives taxpayers the opportunity to correct any past errors or omissions.

Provinces/Territories and Other Government Departments

With over 60 agreements for joint program delivery, the CCRA is a key service provider to federal departments, provincial and territorial governments, and First Nations. As the first point of contact for people and goods entering Canada, we provide a number of services at the border—collecting provincial sales tax on behalf of the provinces, for example—for a host of other government departments and agencies such as Citizenship and Immigration Canada and Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada. Our many other joint programs include working with federal law enforcement partners, such as the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, as well as other law enforcement agencies, to combat money laundering, terrorist financing activities, the wilful evasion of taxes or duties, and other illegal activities.

All provinces and territories, with the exception of Quebec, rely on the CCRA to administer, assess, and collect their provincial/territorial personal income tax. The CCRA's success in implementing the Tax on Income legislation has provided the provinces with increased flexibility regarding their tax policy. The CCRA also administers corporate income tax for all provinces and territories except Quebec, Alberta, and Ontario. Also, we continue to administer a range of ongoing benefits and one-time payments on behalf of the provinces and territories.

Our agency status and governance structure position us well to develop additional partnerships and serve Canadians in innovative and cost effective ways. By administering more tax and benefit programs and by leveraging our systems to provide more services on behalf of our partners, we can improve service quality, eliminate duplicated effort, reduce compliance burdens, and save taxpayers money.

Date modified:

2003-10-29