Tax Services
Spending Profile
In 2004-2005, 66% ($2 billion) of the CRA's overall expenditures were devoted to the Tax Services business line. The CRA had 27,384 full-time equivalent (FTE) staff delivering tax programs and services. The expenditures have increased by 4.2% over the amount for 2003-2004, while FTE utilization has decreased by 2.2%.
A similar trend can be observed at the agency level, where expenditures have increased by 3.6% and FTE utilization decreased by 2.6%. The increase in expenditures can be attributed largely to retroactive and current-year salary increases. The decrease in FTE utilization, in part attributable to the 2004 labour disruption, is not reflected in the employee count at year-end, which has remained stable over the last two fiscal years.
As shown in Figure 1, the largest share of Tax Services resources (35.5%) was spent on activities related to reporting compliance for reviews, examinations, audits and other compliance programs. Some 28.9% was spent on the assessment of returns, which includes filing and remittance operations, SR&ED activities and payments to the Ministère du Revenu du Québec to administer the GST in Quebec. The third component is Collections (18.8%), which is dedicated to ensuring that deductions at-source are remitted and to collecting outstanding accounts. Client Assistance, through various service channels such as telephone assistance and publications, made up 16.8% of the expenditure.
Throughout Client Assistance and Assessment of Returns programs, business processes are continually being re-engineered to generate efficiency gains that, over time, help to offset the impact of the normal growth in workload, which is not compensated by the central agencies. For example, while Individual Returns and Payments Processing FTE utilization decreased by some 3.7% from 3,686 to 3,550, from 2003-2004 to 2004-2005, the annual growth in individual returns processed stood at some 1.5%.
While the Agency has not received funding for normal volume growth, there has been funding provided tied to specific initiatives related to new tax rules for registered charities, money laundering and the impact of the 2004 federal budget initiatives, such as the charities disbursement quota, Canada Learning Bond and Canada Education Savings, Tax Shelters and Non-Resident Investment through Mutual Funds.
Figure 1 Resource Spending by Programs
Cash Deposits: $304.8 billion to the Consolidated Revenue Fund
Clients: 24.4 million individual income tax filers; about 1.5 million employer accounts; about 1.6 million corporate tax filers; 2.4 million GST/HST registrants (excluding Quebec); 25,082 registered pension and deferred profit-sharing plans; and 81,424 registered charities
Services: More than 14 million public enquiries handled and more than 24 million tax-related visits to the CRA website
Processing: 23.6 million individual returns, close to 1.6 million corporate returns, approximately 6.7 million GST/HST returns, 175,554 trust returns and 78,669 charities returns, resulting in more than 34 million payments
Fiscal Impact of Our Compliance Programs: Almost $10.2 billion
Audits and Investigations Completed: 318,337 reviews, examinations and audits, as well as 3,898 other enforcement actions, including criminal investigations of tax evasion and audits under the Special Enforcement Program for income obtained from illegal activity
Performance Report Card
- Canadians pay their required taxes and the tax base is protected
- Provinces, territories and other government departments rely on the CRA as a key service provider
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Expected Result - Clients receive timely, accessible, reliable and fair service that is responsive to their needs
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Performance against Expectations
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Maintain effective communications and implement legislative changes accurately and within required timeframes
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Expand the range of our alternative electronic services
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Improve take-up rate of alternative electronic information services
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Increase participation in electronic filing to 50% of T1 returns by 2004-2005
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Meet our service standards and internal performance targets
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Assess returns accurately
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Maintain or increase client satisfaction levels
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Demonstrate efficiency in trends on cost of operations 1
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Continue growth in programs and services administered by the CRA on behalf of the provinces and territories
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1 No results for 2004-2005 related to this performance expectation are available. We are working towards measurement of these results for future reporting.
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Expected Result - High levels of compliance are achieved and non-compliance is identified and addressed
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Performance against Expectations
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Achieve overall high levels (over 90%) of filing, registration and remittance compliance by individuals, corporations, businesses and employers
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Meet benchmark for number of returns and registrations secured through the Non-Filer Program
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Risk assessment processes to identify reporting non-compliance are effective
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Meet audit coverage level commitments to the Government of Canada
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Identify issues and make recommendations to the Department of Finance Canada for legislative changes
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Participate in meaningful discussions with domestic and international associations and committees to address the risk of non-compliance in areas such as e-commerce and tax havens
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Meet anticipated fiscal impact levels of our compliance programs
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Expected Result - Tax debt is resolved on a timely basis and is within targeted levels
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Performance against Expectations
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Level of tax debt is within forecasted dollar levels
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Meet cash collection commitments to the Government of Canada
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Dollar value of accounts resolved meets or exceeds the intake of new debt (assuming stable levels of intake)
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Stabilize or prevent further deterioration in the ratio of outstanding tax debt to gross cash receipts
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Increase productivity, as measured by cost to resolve $1,000 in tax debt
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Reduce the inventory of older accounts (greater than five years) relative to prior years
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Enhance processes for managing tax debt
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Met 
Mostly Met 
Not Met
- Date modified:
- 2005-10-26
