Conclusion by the Commissioner

The Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) is a national organization that has extensive contact with Canadian citizens and businesses. In 2007-2008, we continued to take full advantage of our legislative flexibility in order to deliver efficient programs and services and pursue partnership opportunities that result in overall savings to the public purse.

As Commissioner and Chief Executive Officer, I am accountable to the Minister of National Revenue for all program matters, and to our Board of Management for administrative matters. I am proud to report that we have once again demonstrated our capacity to achieve meaningful and measurable results for Canadians.

We finalized the implementation of the Corporate Tax Administration for Ontario initiative, which will lead to a simpler and more efficient corporate tax system for businesses. We also continued to make progress in actioning commitments to reduce the compliance burden for small and medium sized business, as identified in the Report of the Canada Revenue Agency’s Task Force on Small Business Issues, published in April 2007.

We maintained our focus on areas that have high rates of non-compliance, such as the underground economy, aggressive tax planning, and Goods and Services Tax/Harmonized Sales Tax (GST/HST). We have increased our audit work to counter aggressive tax planning and we conducted several specific pilot projects aimed at uncovering GST/HST fraud. In addition to the steps we are taking in the area of compliance, we are also improving service to make it simpler and easier for individuals and businesses to meet their tax obligations. In 2007-2008, we improved our electronic service offerings that allow us to more effectively deliver services, increase overall accessibility of tax information and provide more options for Canadians to interact with us.

In May of 2007, we introduced our new formalized service complaints resolution process that will provide individuals, businesses and benefit recipients an additional level of confidence in the way we handle service-related complaints. Concurrently, our Minister announced the new Taxpayer Bill of Rights and the creation of the Taxpayers’ Ombudsman. We remain committed to providing taxpayers the means by which they can be heard and have their issues resolved. Our new service complaints resolution process will strengthen our ability to respond to service-related issues.

Our reputation as a world class tax administration is well earned and we are proud of our accomplishments over the past year. As we move forward, I remain confident in the dedication, knowledge and professionalism of our employees to deliver quality results that matter to Canadians.

William V. Baker
Commissioner and Chief Executive Officer
Canada Revenue Agency

Date modified:

2009-01-29