Schedule B – Other Items of Interest
This schedule contains detailed Action Plans; Sustainable Development; and Benefit Programs and Benefit-Related Services delivered by the CRA.
Detailed Tax Debt Management Action Plans
Tracking of actions to address the recommendations of the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) and the Office of the Auditor General of Canada (OAG) regarding the collection of tax debts by the CRA.
Risk Management
The CRA’s strategy to improve the risk management of its collections program will address the
OAG’s recommendation (8.52) that:
“The Canada Revenue Agency should establish a more comprehensive automated risk-scoring system for tax debts, update the risk scores on an ongoing basis, and use the risk scores to prioritize workload throughout the collections process.”
Specific Commitment(s) and Deliverables
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1. Establish processes to use new Risk Assessment Tools, build Risk Models and Scores, and implement.
- Risk models will be built in 2006-2007 and are currently scheduled for release over 2007-2008 for testing.
- Fully operational risk scores will be available for individual income tax accounts by March 2009.
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Target date of Fiscal Year 2009-2010
Release 2.1 – October 2009
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Piloting a model that predicts the collections yield of a non-filer population. Initial results are very positive.
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The last report indicated that IRC would use a release strategy (Release 2.0 and 2.1) to mitigate risk. Subsequently, a decision was made to advance Data Mining Model (DMM) 07 from Release 2.1 (October 2009) to Release 2.0 (April 2009) to fit within the new debt determine action processing window.
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Release 2.0 – April 2009 includes:
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- Developing the data infrastructure to support the research for the development of various risk models.
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- Open business rules in IRC for the Individual Taxpayer (T1) Accounts Receivable (A/R) Risk Management decision making business processes.
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- 100% of the Individual Taxpayer (T1) population in IRC. Initial release of What If and Champion/Challenger will provide the ability to challenge complete strategies or particular steps within a strategy on a portion of a population prior to its implementation on all of the population.
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- Developing a taxpayer profile that will include debtor history and various risk scores to assist in determining the next appropriate taxpayer treatment action.
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- DMM07 that predicts the likeliness of the taxpayer paying a debt voluntarily within the first 90 days.
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Release 2.1 – October 2009 includes:
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- Use third party financial health scores to help determine CRA action towards a taxpayer.
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- Three data mining models are being developed for IRC Release 2.1:
- DMM03 – Predicts the complexity as a factor of time and effort to resolve a debt.
- DMM06 – Predicts the likelihood that a debt will eventually be written off superseding DMM06.
- DMM08 – Predicts the tax potential for a debtor for an outstanding return for any of the previous three tax years.
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2. Fully operational risk scores are scheduled for business programs by 2011.
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Deferred until funding source is secured
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Current funding and activities exclusively dedicated to T1 individuals
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File Management
The CRA’s strategy to improve the file management of its collections program will address the
OAG’s recommendation (8.65) that:
“The Canada Revenue Agency should minimize the number of collectors who work on each account, record their actions in a more systematic way, and improve the case management tools they have at their disposal.”
Specific Commitment(s) and Deliverables
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1. Improved file management capacity is currently scheduled for March 2009 for individual income tax collections and compliance.
- Integrated Taxpayer View Workbench
- Integrated Compliance Platform
- Workload Management Component
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Target date of October 2009
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As stated in the last update, the project will only be implementing a portion of File Management in Release 2.1.
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The T1 Taxpayer View Mainframe Macro Application (MMA) will be deployed to the T1 Accounts Receivable sites in September 2008. The Non-filer/Non-registrant Taxpayer View is currently in the build phase and will be deployed to all Tax Services Offices starting in January 2009.
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Subsequent to the last report a decision was made to increase the scope of this deliverable to assist in the management of inventory for Corporate (T2), Individual (T1), GST and Payroll Deductions. This application is currently in development.
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2. Business programs are currently scheduled to use the same components for improvements to file and workload management in 2011.
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Deferred until funding source is secured
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Current funding and activities exclusively dedicated to T1 individuals
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Performance Reporting
The CRA’s strategy to improve the performance reporting of its collections program will address the
OAG’s recommendation (8.41) that:
“The Canada Revenue Agency should significantly improve its management information to make it complete and comprehensive. It should develop reliable techniques and information sources to determine on a regular basis the results of its collection efforts and use that information to guide its decision-making for each of its major collection modes and actions.”
Specific Commitment(s) and Deliverables
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1. Improved performance reporting tools for individual income tax programs will be available beginning late in 2007, with fully operational reporting at the national, regional, local office, and individual officer levels scheduled for individual income tax programs by March 2009.
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Target date of April 2009
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- Enhanced data accessibility provided through an updated version of All Revenues Table that was re-released into production as of June 2008. The work continues to enhance data access and inventory management reporting for program managers.
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- Improved operational and corporate reporting, with increased access to information and flexibility, for T1 (individuals) will be delivered starting in April 2009. This new tool will allow reporting of both Taxpayer actions and CRA actions thereby more accurately measuring the results of collection actions.
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- Three different data marts have been built to support data analysis, research and performance reporting capabilities. These tools facilitate access to CRA information formerly available only via system selects and manual statistics. Enhanced data analysis will lead to improved decision making based on facts such as a full understanding of the make-up of the tax debt and effectiveness of collections steps and strategies.
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2. Performance reporting tools are currently scheduled to be progressively implemented throughout all major business revenue lines by 2011.
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- Reporting for Individuals will progressively incorporate other business lines.
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3. The CRA will collect information on collector actions through continued enhancement of its performance measurement systems by way of the Integrated Revenue Collections (IRC) project, which is scheduled to have its first major phase implemented by March 2009.
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Target date of April 2009.
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- Progress continues to be made on improving performance information on the results of actions of individual collectors. Activities are underway in the development of the Taxpayer Folder concept which will store front-end automated collections actions in addition to the taxpayers actions.
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Debt Management Research
The CRA’s strategy to improve its debt management research will address the
OAG’s recommendation (8.28) that:
“The Canada Revenue Agency should identify and collect the data it needs to analyze the makeup of its tax debt and to develop better collection strategies.”
(considering a variety of factors including fluctuations in the economic cycle).
Specific Commitment(s) and Deliverables
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Initial research model (to better understand the makeup of tax debt and the profile of debtors) is currently scheduled to be developed over 2006-2007 for individual income tax programs.
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- An Individual Tax Debtor Research Model has been completed and a number of related research initiatives have been completed or are in progress.
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Business program research model is currently scheduled to be developed in 2007, for implementation early in 2008.
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- A Corporation Income Tax Debt research model has been completed and a number of related research initiatives are in progress.
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Build enhanced analytical capacity using IRC data-analysis enhancements, currently scheduled for 2009 for individual income tax accounts.
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- The data infrastructure is being developed to support the research and analysis to increase the capacity for debt management research using data already available in CRA.
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- Privacy Impact Assessment was prepared to address privacy issues relative to access to data for analytic and research purposes.
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Build enhanced analytical capacity using IRC data-analysis enhancements by 2011 for business programs.
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Deferred until funding source is secured.
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Current funding and activities exclusively dedicated to T1 individuals.
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5. Research Into Economic Indicators
Develop research approach and conduct study.
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- A research initiative has been launched with the objective of determining the timing and nature of any observable impact that reported economic variables may have on debt management, and whether the impacts operate in a consistent, measurable manner.
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Outstanding 1994 OAG Recommendations
“That the Canada Revenue Agency develop a detailed action plan that includes timelines and performance indicators for the implementation of the outstanding recommendations contained in chapter 29 of the Auditor General’s 1994 Report and submit that action plan to the Standing Committee on Public Accounts no later than 31 December 2006.”
- Two items involving risk-scoring and performance information have been included under Item 1.
- No further submissions to PAC will be made as our September 2006 report met with PAC requests.
Specific Commitment(s) and Deliverables
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1. An analysis of danger-of-loss scenarios is being conducted, and a final report will be produced by June 2007.
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2. Performance standards will be established at the collector level through a tailored addendum to the existing performance management products to be implemented for all collectors beginning September 1, 2007. These standards will include the nature and frequency of debtor contacts, timeframes for resolving accounts, and use of legal action and other methods to collect amounts outstanding.
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Work Assessment Checklist and tools have been implemented.
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3. In response to the OAG’s recommendation to monitor time spent by collection officers in both cash-generating and non-cash-generating activities, the CRA has already introduced more detailed time reporting on newly established speciality workflows.
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An internal order process has been developed and implemented to capture time spent on activities. The process is very detailed and includes all work activities handled by the field.
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4. The OAG reported that satisfactory progress had been made in respect of 4 additional items recommended in 1994:
- Large Debt Collections
- Ability To Pay Guidelines
- Tracking Results By Officer
- Annual Review Of Accounts
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Remaining PAC Recommendations
“That the Canada Revenue Agency report on progress on the implementation of this plan in its annual performance report, beginning with the year ending March 31, 2007.”
Specific Commitment(s) and Deliverables
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1. The Annual report to Parliament will be modified to include this information.
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A progress update was included in the CRA Annual Report to Parliament for 2006-2007. The update focuses on the plan of action for implementing the Agency 2010 strategic vision through branch business transformation to strengthen core debt management business operations. Updates will be provided in the CRA Annual Report each year.
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Remaining OAG Recommendations
“The Canada Revenue Agency should minimize the number of collectors who work on each account, record their collection actions in a more systematic way, and improve the case management tools they have at their disposal.“
The Agency will undertake an initiative to identify file management inefficiencies and improve the effectiveness of collector actions on case inventories.
The Agency will build on process improvements it has made, such as the national collections call centre and national pools, to further improve its file management. More specifically, the Integrated Revenue Collections project will improve the case management tools available to perform all Agency collection activities.
Specific Commitment(s) and Deliverables
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1. A study of files managed by collectors will be conducted to validate the OAG observations and identify improvements to practices.
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The file reviews have been completed and initial findings on lower value and complexity accounts demonstrated that additional measures are needed to assure quality of work. This item has now been completed insofar as delivering on the management response to this 2006 observation.
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Accounts Receivable Division has implemented two tools to improve the quality of work done by collection officers. The first is the Work Assessment Checklist, which is a joint Union/Management initiative, and to be used by the team leader to enhance performance management. The second was the roll out of an On-Site Quality Assurance Review process (OSQAR). The goal is to review the work done at the TSO level, identify negative trends and training needs, and addressing findings in a timely manner. Both programs were implemented in 2007-2008.
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Sustainable Development
Protecting our environment and pursuing efficient operations go hand in hand at the CRA. By using fewer resources, while optimizing our services, we reduce our operating costs and preserve valuable natural resources. One illustration of this principle is our use of office paper. The table below shows that, since the implementation of our paper reduction strategy in 2002-2003, the overall trend reveals a reduction in the amount of paper used per employee as well as lower office paper expenditures.
Annual Office Paper Consumption
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Average Consumption per FTE in Sheets
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Office Paper Expenditures
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Our employees are essential and willing partners in our pursuit of environmental excellence. A 2007 survey indicated that 89% of employees were aware of the sustainable development efforts in our organization. Of those, 94% have reduced paper consumption, 92% have increased recycling, and 91% have reduced their energy consumption.
Our current efforts are guided by our 2007-2010 Sustainable Development Strategy. The strategy sets out our agenda for reducing the impact of our operations on the environment, delivering our programs in a more sustainable way, engaging our employees, and building essential support systems for sustainable development.
For more information on our Sustainable Development performance, please visit:
http://www.cra-arc.gc.ca/gncy/sstnbl/prfrmnc/menu-eng.html .
Benefit Programs and Benefit-Related Services Delivered by the CRA
Five Federal Benefit Programs
- Canada Child Tax Benefit
- Universal Child Care Benefit [Footnote 1]
- Goods and Services Tax / Harmonized Sales Tax Credit
- Children’s Special Allowances
- Disability Tax Credit
[Footnote 1] On behalf of Human Resources and Social Development Canada.
18 Ongoing Benefit Programs for Provinces and Territories
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- British Columbia – BC Family Bonus
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- British Columbia – BC Earned Income Benefit
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- Alberta Family Employment Tax Credit
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- Saskatchewan Child Benefit
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- Saskatchewan Sales Tax Credit
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- Northwest Territories Child Benefit
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- Northwest Territories – Territorial Worker’s Supplement
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- Nunavut Territorial Worker’s Supplement
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- New Brunswick Child Tax Benefit
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- New Brunswick Working Income Supplement
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- Nova Scotia Child Benefit
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- Newfoundland and Labrador Child Benefit
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- Newfoundland and Labrador – Mother Baby Nutrition Supplement
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- Newfoundland Harmonized Sales Tax Credit
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- Newfoundland and Labrador Seniors’ Benefit
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- Ontario Child Tax Benefit
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Eight One-Time Payment Programs
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- Ontario Home Electricity Relief
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- Energy Cost Benefit program (federal)
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- Alberta 2005 Resource Rebate
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- Nova Scotia Taxpayer Refund
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- British Columbia – BC Energy Rebate
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- Alberta Energy Tax Refund
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- Ontario Taxpayer Dividend
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- Relief for Heating Expenses program (federal)
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46 Data Exchange and Data Transfer Services
- Twenty-three income verification data exchanges with provinces to support programs
- Eleven NCB Supplement data exchanges with provinces and territories to facilitate calculation of social assistance
- Four data transfers with provinces to support top-ups for CRA-administered child benefit programs
- Two data transfers of income and child information to support administration of the Ontario Child Care Supplement and Quebec Family Allowance programs
- Two data exchanges and transfers to support the new Nova Scotia Pharmacare program and to assist the ministère du Revenu du Québec in the administration of the Quebec Income Tax Act
- Four data exchanges and data transfers to support federal administration of EI Family Supplement, Canada Learning Bond, Additional Canada Education Savings Grant, and Guaranteed Income Supplement
- Date modified:
- 2009-01-29
