CRA Annual Report to Parliament 2008-2009 - Taxpayer and Business Assistance
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Taxpayer and Business Assistance
Overview
Our Taxpayer and Business Assistance area assists taxpayers, businesses, and registrants in meeting their obligations under Canada’s self-assessment system by providing accurate and timely responses to their enquiries. In addition, we provide rulings and interpretations to clarify and interpret tax laws, as well as for CPP/EI purposes, and administer federal tax legislation governing registered plans and charities.
In 2008-2009, our goal was to build on our position as an innovative service leader and increase compliance in all areas of tax regulation.
In 2008-2009, we succeeded in improving the quality of our services to make them easier to use to encourage participation in the Canadian tax system, and facilitate compliance. We increased our collaboration with provincial and territorial governments and enhanced compliance within the tobacco industry.
To implement solutions to meet and exceed the exacting service expectations of a diverse set of individuals, businesses, and other entities that have different needs, obligations, and levels of understanding in a tax system that can be complex and challenging at times. In addition, existing tax legislation and government policy objectives can be challenged by emerging business practices and economic developments, to which the CRA must be responsive and adaptive.
1. Taxpayers, businesses, and registrants have access to timely and accurate information.
2. Non-compliance is detected and addressed.
Spending Profile (in thousands of dollars)
In 2008-2009, spending for this program activity totalled $605 million (4,844 FTEs) or 14.4% of the CRA’s overall expenditures. Of this $605 million, $483 million were net program expenditures and $122 million was allocated to this program activity for internal services.
Our 2008-2009 priorities
In support of the overarching theme of achieving excellence in program delivery, we committed to undertake a number of initiatives that focused on strengthening service and addressing non-compliance.
Strengthening service
To strengthen service delivery, we focused on increasing the accessibility and efficiency of our programs and services.
Our Smartlinks service aligns telephone and Internet service delivery channels by linking users of our Web site tax information for individuals and businesses to our telephone service. This past year, we expanded our Smartlinks service by adding new links to selected CRA Web pages for individuals. In 2008-2009, our expanded Smartlinks program provided direct telephone access to subject matter experts for over 34,000 taxpayers, a 34.2% increase from the previous year. In addition, our E-services Helpdesk, which supports electronic service delivery programs, such as NETFILE, responded to over one million enquiries in 2008-2009. This is a 39% increase from the close to 774,000 enquiries received in 2007-2008. We believe both of these examples are indicators of the success of our accessibility enhancements.
Priority: Make our services easier to use
Achievement: During 2008-2009, our testing of the usability and accessibility of our Web pages allowed us to identify and make improvements to support user needs, thereby improving the quality of our services.
Under our Community Volunteer Income Tax Program, we partner with community organizations to organize and run tax return preparation clinics for eligible taxpayers. In 2008-2009, volunteers were trained using a new CD. This ensured uniform volunteer training in order to improve the quality of service. In this way, we enhanced the help given to lower-income individuals who were not able to prepare their tax returns on their own.
Priority: Enhance targeting and customization of outreach programs
Achievement: We tailored new outreach programs and initiatives to the diverse needs of taxpayers. These included pre-retirement seminars, information sessions on the new tobacco stamp, town halls with forestry industry members, CPP/EI awareness sessions, small business seminars, and other presentations about timely topics such as job losses resulting from the economic downturn.
This past year, we enhanced our National Quality and Accuracy Learning Program, a learning tool designed to assist our agents in improving the quality and accuracy of the service they provide. Our results on call quality and accuracy are used, in part, to identify training needs and emerging service issues and trends. We also converted more of our paper-based training products for our agents into online and e-learning training products in 2008-2009. In addition, we improved the navigation between the agent’s desktop and online reference material, providing them with faster access to the information needed to address taxpayer enquiries. By taking these steps, we believe taxpayers were further assured that they received accurate information, which is critical in helping them meet their tax obligations.
Addressing non-compliance
As a major step to prevent contraband tobacco products from entering the Canadian market, and to support the Government of Canada’s health objectives, a prototype tobacco excise stamp was released and is currently being tested by the tobacco industry. Implementation is targeted for early 2010.
In 2008-2009, we concluded historic settlements agreements to resolve long-standing issues of contraband tobacco smuggling that took place in the early 1990’s. This action resulted in two tobacco manufacturers agreeing to a $1.15 billion settlement. These settlements demonstrate that we are taking action to protect the integrity of the tax system, and that anyone operating outside the law will be held accountable.
In support of the implementation of the Softwood Lumber Products Export Charge Act, 2006, we followed through on our commitment to work with exporters to promote continual compliance. We conducted verification activities to audit the books and records of exporters participating in the Softwood Lumber Export Charge program.
Expected results
Our expected results are the criteria by which we measure and report the effectiveness of our activities to Canadians. We carry out our Taxpayer and Business Assistance activities to achieve two expected results:
Taxpayers, businesses, and registrants have access to timely and accurate information
Performance Rating: Mostly Met
Priority: Increase electronic service offerings
Achievement: We successfully developed and implemented a system that allows Tax-Free Savings Account (TFSA) issuers to electronically file the required information to the CRA.
As discussed in the section entitled Achieving Our Tax Services Strategic Outcome, the telephone remains a popular channel through which taxpayers seek information from the CRA. The timeliness with which we respond to taxpayer telephone enquiries is a key measure of our performance. In 2008-2009, we met our service standards for answering general and business tax enquiries in a timely manner, as we have done in the past four years. We also exceeded our service standard for answering charities enquiries.
As of January 1, 2009, the CRA became the first point of contact for all Corporate Tax Administration for Ontario enquiries through a dedicated team of specially trained business enquiries agents.
By reallocating resources to strengthen service and increase caller accessibility in 2008-2009, our results improved significantly over the previous year. As noted in our Performance Report Card on , we exceeded our new 90% caller accessibility targets for general and business enquiries.
We did not meet our performance targets for responding to simple and regular charities applications within the established timeframes. Due to a high inventory of charities files that needed to be processed, as well as staffing shortages and high employee turnover, a performance shortfall resulted. Steps have been taken to resolve this and it is expected that targets will be met by the end of 2009-2010.
Figure 10 Timely Response to Requests for Advance Income Tax Rulings and Technical Interpretations
After seeing some improvement last year in our results related to our service standard for the provision of technical income tax interpretations, our results in 2008-2009 declined slightly (see Figure 10 ). In addition, there remains a need for improvement in meeting our service standard for issuing advance income tax rulings. The increase in turnaround time has largely been caused by increased file complexity and the ongoing challenges of retaining experienced staff for this specialized workload. To meet the critical deadlines for these files, we have developed a comprehensive approach using a framework centred on defining and analyzing the key issues and devising a course of action by the end of 2009-2010.
To ensure that the information we provide through our enquiries services is accurate, we use qualitative and quantitative quality assurance techniques that provide ongoing, timely feedback to our enquiries agents. This is done through both our National Quality and Accuracy Learning Program and the survey we conduct on the accuracy of our telephone agents’ responses to non-account-specific enquiries. In 2008-2009, the results from our ongoing quality monitoring programs indicated that accuracy is assured as a key element of providing quality enquiries services.
Priority: Improve the quality of our information services
Achievement: In 2008-2009, we added centres of expertise to our tax enquiries call centres to improve the timeliness and accuracy of responses to selected highly complex, low-frequency enquiries. This improved accessibility for other callers, who had general and account-specific enquiries.
Non-compliance is detected and addressed
In 2008-2009, the number of excise regulatory reviews and audits exceeded our 90% target. We are confident that these programs will continue to be effective in addressing non-compliance.
We were successful in completing the required number of charities audits. We fell short, however, of our target to complete registered plan audits due to staffing challenges.
Performance Report Card
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Respond to written requests for GST/HST rulings and interpretations within 45 working days of receipt of request [Footnote 1]
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87% [Footnote 2]
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Performance Report Card
- Date modified:
- 2009-11-05