Appeals

Performance Discussion

The Appeals business line has one expected outcome:

Canadians receive an impartial and responsive review of contested decisions. Our aim is to provide clients with a fair dispute resolution process. We believe that an impartial and responsive process fosters trust in the integrity of Canada's tax system, and that this in turn helps promote voluntary compliance with our system.

On balance, we believe that we have mostly met this expected outcome, through the following:

• demonstrating that our dispute resolution process maintains high levels of transparency and consistency to help promote the fair and impartial treatment of our clients, and introducing the ‘Register My Formal Dispute' feature on our website to further enhance client accessibility to our redress process;
• meeting our service standard, which monitors our responsiveness to client requests, although timeliness of case processing remains an issue in specific areas;
• working on improving turnaround times across the three program areas for the delivery of Appeals services; this was not fully achieved in 2004-2005, however, and additional strategies are being reviewed to determine the next course of action, especially with respect to the CPP/EI program;
• continuing efforts to reduce the average age of workable inventory and resolve cases consistently; and
• demonstrating fairness through the fair treatment of Canadians by applying the law impartially and ensuring the continued success of our Voluntary Disclosures Program, and demonstrating cost-effectiveness in the resolution of disputes through efforts to resolve the majority of disputes administratively, thereby avoiding the more costly option of a court proceeding.

Date modified:

2005-10-26