CRA Annual Report to Parliament 2005-2006
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Our 2005-2006 Results
Our Program Activities
Appeals (PA5)
The CRA's Appeals program activity is one of the Government of Canada's largest dispute resolution services; it provides taxpayers with a fair and effective dispute resolution process that respects their fundamental right to redress. Taxpayers can dispute decisions pertaining to their income tax and commodity tax assessments and determinations as well as CPP/EI assessments and rulings. Our Appeals program activity is also responsible for two additional activities: leading the CRA's Fairness Initiative and administering the Voluntary Disclosures Program (VDP). We undertake our Appeals activities at Tax Centres and Tax Services Offices across Canada. A great majority of appeals cases are resolved administratively; however, both the CRA and the taxpayers can rely on the courts as the ultimate arbiters of disputes that cannot be resolved through the initial redress process.
In 2005-2006, spending for this program activity totalled $121.9 million (1,528 FTEs) or 3.3% of the CRA's overall expenditures 1 . Of this $121.9 million, $92.3 million was for net program expenditures and $29.5 million was allocated to this program activity for Corporate Services.
- Appeals – responsible for resolving disputes arising from decisions made under legislation administered by the CRA by conducting fair and impartial reviews of income tax and commodity tax assessments, as well as CPP/EI decisions:
- Voluntary Disclosures Program – the VDP allows taxpayers to correct past errors or omissions and report their tax obligations without penalty:
- Functional direction – re-engineers and monitors appeals processes for the CRA; and provides financial planning and management support services to PA5. This sub-activity is also responsible for leading the CRA's Fairness Initiative:
- spending of $8.5 million (92 FTEs);
- interest and penalties totalling $161 million was cancelled or waived for over 35,000 taxpayer requests;
- automatic cancellations and waivers totalling over $465 million were processed for over 595,000 taxpayers; and
- under the Fairness Provisions, a total of 65,307 taxpayer requests for relief from interest and penalties were processed.
- Allocation of Corporate Services spending
Performance Discussion
Our Appeals program activity has one expected result: Taxpayers receive an impartial and timely review of contested decisions . We mostly met this objective in 2005-2006 by meeting our expectations in the following key areas:
- achieving positive results from our Quality Assurance Program;
- administrative resolution rates of 95% for income tax, 91% for commodity tax, and 77% for CPP/EI rulings;
- in most cases, we consistently applied our fairness policies and procedures to all fairness requests;
- by achieving an 89% rate against our service standard for initial contact, and through improved results in turnaround times in two of the three activity areas;
- narrowing the ratio between intakes and disposals to 1,116 cases; and
- increased VDP cases completed.
Our aim is to ensure all taxpayers have access to responsive and impartial redress because a fair dispute resolution service fosters confidence in our self-assessment system and encourages taxpayers to meet their obligations.
Quality Assurance – Our Quality Assurance Program uses sampling techniques to measure the consistency and transparency of specific Appeals activities against established benchmarks.
Our 2005-2006 review results for both consistency and transparency, as they are applied, for the three program areas improved from the previous year. We exceeded our 94% consistency target, achieving results that ranged between 98% and 99.6%. Our review of transparency showed improved results, specifically in the two areas identified during last year's review; however, the results achieved did not meet our 100% benchmarks.
Disputes resolved administratively – In 2005-2006, we continued to resolve a great majority of income tax and commodity taxes appeals cases administratively without resorting to the courts (Figure 34). In regard to CPP/EI disputes, the administrative resolution rate improved to 77%. The variance in the resolution rates between CPP/EI disputes and income tax and commodity tax disputes is inherent within the legislated program differences.
Figure 34 Administrative Resolution Rates
Note: 2005-2006 targets: 95% for income tax and 90% for commodity taxes
Fairness Provisions – The fairness legislation includes provisions that allow us to exercise discretion in extenuating circumstances (Figure 35). We continued our mandatory commitment to monitor our fairness activities across all areas responsible for granting relief from penalties and interest under the fairness provisions with a view to improving the administration and uniformity of application of the fairness provisions. Our report this year concluded that, in most cases, we consistently applied the existing fairness policies and procedures to all fairness requests; however, areas for improvement were identified.
A monitoring framework is being developed to ensure quality assurance and continuous improvement in the administration of the fairness provisions. This framework will assist all CRA areas in conducting the review of fairness files in a consistent manner using standard tools. The development of one methodology and monitoring plan will ensure consistency in the observations and reports provided across the CRA.
Figure 35 Requests and Relief Under the Fairness Provisions
In 2005-2006, we provided full or partial relief in 55% of the fairness requests received for interest and penalties. The value of interest and penalties cancelled or waived as a result of taxpayer requests was $161 million in 2005-2006. The automatic waivers of penalty and interest under the fairness provisions totalled in excess of $465 million in 2005-2006. In summary, the CRA cancelled or waived more than $626 million for over 631,000 taxpayers 2 .
Timely review of disputes is important; however, the need for quality decisions is critically important and must not be sacrificed for the sake of timeliness. For this reason, we continue to review our targets for the timeliness of case completion to ensure the appropriate balance between timeliness and quality is respected.
Service Standard – We begin measuring our responsiveness when a taxpayer files a notice of dispute to an assessment, determination, or ruling. Our service standard is to ensure that we provide 85% of taxpayers who file disputes with a status update within 30 days of filing their dispute. In 2005-2006, our rate was 89% across all three program areas. Indeed, we have consistently met this standard for the past five years (Figure 36).
Figure 36 Service Standard – Client Contact
Case Completion – In 2005-2006, we succeeded in reducing the average processing time of our workable income tax files from 130 to 120 days (Figure 37). This result is especially important because income tax files are the largest portion of our workload and accounted for approximately 83% of our production for the year.
In 2005-2006, we processed commodity tax files more quickly on average, improving by about 2% over our 2004-2005 results.
For CPP/EI files, our average processing time increased from 174 days in 2004-2005 to 183 days in 2005-2006. Although we have been taking steps to reduce the average processing time for CPP/EI files, we were unsuccessful this year in achieving our objective due to an unusual increase in more time-consuming files. We completed a comprehensive review of our processes and identified potential strategies that should result in improved processing times and better inventory management; we are currently studying these strategies to determine their feasibility. Furthermore, we initiated a pilot project aimed at improving the current procedures utilized in processing CPP/EI files, with the ultimate goal of national implementation.
Figure 37 Average Time to Resolve Disputes
Disposals to Intake Ratio – Since taxpayers have a legislated right to recourse, we have no control over the number of disputes that we receive. In 2005-2006, our dispute intakes again exceeded our disposals, which directly affected the level of our inventories. The ratio between intakes and disposals, however, has steadily narrowed over the past five years.
Voluntary Disclosures Program – As discussed on , our approach to tax administration is to have taxpayers comply with their obligations without our intervention. Since total compliance is not realistic, our Voluntary Disclosures Program (VDP) encourages taxpayers who have failed to meet their tax obligations to correct past errors or omissions and report their tax liability without penalty.
We recognize the need to ensure timely processing of VDP files in order to maintain a manageable level of our inventories and also to provide the taxpayers a timely assessment of the information they have submitted. Targets are currently under development and will be available for future performance measurement purposes.
Meanwhile, this program showed continued growth in 2005-2006. There was an increase in the number of VDP cases completed this year: 7,314 up from 6,632 in the previous year. An estimated $331 million was generated in related assessments, with income tax files accounting for $121 million and GST/HST, $210 million. Despite a noticeable increase in the number of files received from taxpayers, we managed to keep our inventory levels relatively stable.
1 Spending and FTE figures for sub-activities may not add up to this total due to rounding.
2 The figures for the automated waivers originally reported for 2004-2005 were re-stated, based on our review of administrative tolerances. This review revealed that there was a reduction of 286,299 automated waiver clients, with an associated reduction of over $506 million.
Unaudited
- Date modified:
- 2006-11-23