ARCHIVED - Canada Revenue Agency

• Previous Page
• Table of Contents
• Next Page

This page has been archived.

Section II: Analysis of Program Activities by Strategic Outcome

Overview

Our Program Activity Architecture identifies our program activities (PAs) and demonstrates how they link to our strategic outcomes (see ). This framework is based on the Management, Resources and Results Structure (MRRS), established by the Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat on April 1, 2005, which provides a structure for organizing, integrating, and presenting plans, budgets, and performance measures.

Program activities are groups of related activities that are designed and managed to meet a specific public need and often treated as a budgetary unit. Each program activity is articulated at a sufficient level of materiality to reflect how we allocate and manage our resources in order to achieve intended results. The CRA has seven distinct program activities.

The following sections are organized according to these seven program activities:

• Taxpayer and Business Assistance (PA1), which assists taxpayers in meeting their obligations under Canada’s self-assessment system.
• Assessment of Returns and Payment Processing (PA2), which processes and validates taxpayer returns; registers, establishes, and maintains taxpayer accounts; and receives payments.
• Accounts Receivable and Returns Compliance (PA3), which identifies and addresses non-compliance with taxpayer filing and remittance requirements, and manages tax debt.
• Reporting Compliance (PA4), which verifies the complete and accurate disclosure by taxpayers of all required information to establish their tax liabilities and protects the revenue base through audit and enforcement activities.
• Appeals (PA5), which provides a timely and impartial dispute resolution process for taxpayers who disagree with decisions made by the CRA.
• Benefit Programs (PA6), which provides Canadians with income-based benefits and other services that contribute directly to their economic and social well-being.
• Corporate Services (PA7), covers infrastructure activities (e.g. information technology, financial management, and human resources administration) where enhancements support both excellence in program delivery and a workplace committed to excellence.

For each program activity, we present an overview of the program, planned spending, the program strategies to advance the program, and the priority initiatives for the planning period. As with the previous year’s report, corporate services planned spending has been proportionately allocated among the six core tax and benefit programs activities.

Each section includes a table of measures that are deliverables for the planning period, as well as performance indicators and targets that quantify the program activity’s expected results. These targets identify the percentage or degree of expected attainment of a performance level. Targets are established by program managers through analysis of operational realities and infrastructure, historical performance, the complexity of the work involved, and the expectations of Canadians.

Taxpayer and Business Assistance (PA1)

Program Overview

The Taxpayer and Business Assistance program activity is responsible for providing tools, assistance, and information that facilitate voluntary compliance with tax obligations. We undertake this work through several Call Centres and 48 Tax Services Offices (including the International Tax Services Office). We also supply taxpayers, businesses, and registrants with rulings on legislative policy and procedural entitlements and obligations in accordance with relevant federal and provincial/territorial legislation.

This program activity is divided into two sub-activities:

Enquiries and Information Services assists individuals and businesses in meeting their obligations under tax legislation by providing information, products, education and outreach services, and by responding to enquiries.

Legislative Policy and Regulatory Affairs assists taxpayers in meeting their obligations by providing income and commodity tax rulings and interpretations; Canada Pension Plan and Employment Insurance Act rulings; services relating to the registration and audit of pensions, other deferred income plans and charities; by administering duty programs for certain commodities and certain provisions of the softwood lumber agreement.

Enquiries and Information Services and Legislative Policy and Regulatory Affairs are distinct sub-activities, and are discussed separately under this program activity.

Program Resources

Measures—Taxpayer and Business Assistance

Program Strategies—Enquiries and Information Services

By providing information products and answering enquiries, we encourage taxpayers to meet their obligations. To achieve excellence in program delivery, our program strategies focus on strengthening service.

Strengthening Service

We will continue to pursue excellence in program delivery to protect Canada’s revenue base by building on our position as an innovative service leader.

The CRA continues to focus on improving the quality of our services to make them simpler and easier to use to encourage and facilitate participation in the Canadian tax system, and thus facilitate compliance.

As part of our strategy for service enhancement, we will continue to realign our service and information options based on an approach centred on individuals or businesses. We will offer tools and information tailored to their needs and based on their feedback, analysis, and research results. We will also address changing demographics, economic trends, and national and local compliance issues through outreach programs that are fine-tuned to meet the particular needs of specific taxpayer or business groups, such as seniors, new Canadians, existing ethno-cultural communities, students, and small- and medium-sized enterprises. In addition, recent CRA annual surveys have shown slight declines in the level of Canadians’ satisfaction with our telephone services; consequently, we are undertaking internal reallocations to enhance these services.

As well, we will improve enquiries and information services and products through the CRA’s service channel strategy, which will reduce reliance on printed media and telephone support and increase use of our online resources. To help us improve the Web as a service channel, we will continue to employ usability testing and conduct a user-survey of our Smartlinks service so that we better understand how clients access our information. In addition, we support electronic service delivery programs, such as NETFILE and TELEFILE, through the e-Services Helpdesk.

We intend to further develop Smartlinks, which is unique to the CRA Web site, to allow users greater telephone access to tax matter experts. We are also implementing a facility to allow the information we have developed and published to be used across different service channels. In addition, continuous efforts are made to ensure the timeliness of content on the Web site and in paper publications.

We will foster a dynamic and flexible workforce with strategies that respond in a taxpayer- or business-centered manner to changing and increasingly complex enquiries and concerns. In addition to having an enhanced ability to respond to more complex issues, CRA agents will be provided with interactive e-learning and online integrated reference tools. We will also continue to improve our focus on quality by developing a new quality assurance regime.

Where it makes sense, the CRA will pursue partnerships with other service organizations at the federal, provincial, territorial, and First Nations levels, providing more integrated services to Canadians. In so doing, we will strengthen and enhance our technology/infrastructure across channels, which will support an integrated, taxpayer- or business-centred service approach and give us more flexibility to link to other organizations, programs, and levels of government, providing services on their behalf.

We will ensure the consistency, timeliness, and accuracy of the information we provide. To do so, we will ensure all products and services are up to date with relevant changes to policies, procedures, and legislation, and to support the implementation of a content management system. In addition, we will conduct usability testing to ensure that products and services, including related Web content, are tailored to meet user needs. Finally, we will enhance taxpayer service on the Internet through enquiry demand analyses and improved linkages between the CRA and individuals, as well as providing linkages to information held by other organizations.

Specific program priorities we will pursue over the planning period, in furtherance of our program strategies to enhance service delivery, are listed in the table below.

Priority Initiatives—Enquiries and Information Services

Program Strategies—Legislative Policy and Regulatory Affairs

By engaging in education and outreach programs, responding to enquiries, providing rulings and interpretations, registering plans and charities, and administering duty programs for certain commodities, we encourage compliance in terms of filing and reporting obligations thereby helping to protect Canada’s revenue base. Over the planning period, we will achieve excellence in program delivery both through strengthening service and addressing non-compliance.

Strengthening Service

In accordance with the agreement with the Government of Ontario, we will pursue the full integration of the Ontario rulings function as part of the Corporate Tax Administration for Ontario initiative to harmonize the federal and Ontario corporate tax bases. We will also work to improve our performance in issuing income tax rulings within an average of 60 days.

In an effort to modernize and strengthen the charities program, we will enhance our electronic service offerings and access to program information via the Internet, starting with a new section for donors. To improve the overall regulatory environment, we also intend to enhance our collaboration with provincial and territorial governments.

As part of our strategy to further enhance service delivery, we will continue to upgrade our toll-free enquiries line for registered plans, making more information available electronically on our Web site, and improving our outreach activities and electronic publications. The Canada Pension Plan/Employment Insurance rulings process will be modernized to include converting requests for CPP/EI rulings to electronic format.

Enhancing our Efforts to Address Non-Compliance

We are committed to increasing compliance in all areas of tax regulation and strengthening our core business of protecting Canada’s revenue base by providing strong taxpayer assistance.

We deal with the challenges of non-compliance by working to continuously enhance the effectiveness of our Excise programs. We will continue to apply a high frequency of audit and regulatory reviews (compliance visits) to tobacco manufacturers in accordance with the Tobacco Compliance Strategy. We will also implement the enhanced tobacco stamp component of the Tobacco Compliance Strategy and implement the third stage of the Tobacco Grower’s Outreach program.

For deferred income plans, we will streamline the registration process using a risk-based approach and increase the audit coverage through random and targeted audits. For charities, we will continue the smooth implementation of a graduated approach to administering the new sanctions regime.

We will focus our efforts on inter-provincial tax avoidance to address the techniques used by corporations to shift income between provinces and territories.

We will also continue to implement the Charities Registration (Security Information) Act, which supports Canada’s national security agenda and international obligations to counter terrorism.

Specific program priorities we will pursue over the planning period, in furtherance of our program strategies to enhance service delivery and our efforts to address non-compliance, are listed in the table below.

Priority Initiatives—Legislative Policy and Regulatory Affairs

Assessment of Returns and Payment Processing (PA2)

Program Overview

The Assessment of Returns and Payment Processing program activity encompasses a range of activities to accurately, efficiently, and effectively process individual and business tax returns and payments.

Major functions include risk assessment, third-party data matching, and dependable information validation processes. As well, every known business in Canada is registered through this activity area (except those for which registration is not required by law). The key sub-activities are as follows:

Our Individual Returns Processing sub-activity deals with processing T1 Income Tax and Benefit Returns and T3 Trust Income Tax and Information Returns for tax programs, through initial assessment, pre-and post-assessment validation review (T1 returns), accounting, adjustments, and general correspondence.

The Business Returns Processing sub-activity registers businesses in Canada using the Business Number; processes, assesses and validates information filed through T2 (corporation income tax), T4 (employer), T5 (interest income) and GST/HST returns. Additionally, it establishes and maintains account status; carries out excise programs; and processes all payments.

This program activity also administers both the memorandum of understanding with the ministère du Revenu du Québec (Revenu Québec) and payments to Revenu Québec for GST Administration in Quebec.

Program Resources

Measures—Assessment of Returns and Payment Processing

Program Strategies

We believe that providing taxpayers with increased convenience and accessibility through electronic filing and payment encourages their voluntary compliance and helps them comply with their tax obligations thereby ensuring that Canada’s revenue base is protected. Over the planning period, our focus will be on both strengthening service and addressing non-compliance.

Strengthening Service

We have been significantly changing the way we deliver our programs during the past several years. Taxpayer needs and changes in the environment are the chief considerations in our commitment to achieving excellence in program delivery by improving the accessibility and efficiency of our programs and services.

We will continue to pursue excellence in program delivery by encouraging wider use of electronic filing and expanding our electronic service offerings and by redeveloping and modernizing our core information processing systems.

Specifically, we will provide enhanced services to increase accessibility and efficiency, for example, by enhancing My Account for individuals and filing GST/HST debit returns through My Business Account. We will also continue to provide expanded service to the representative community via the Represent a client service by enhancing the service and increasing take-up rates.

The CRA will implement upcoming phases of the redeveloped GST/HST systems to modernize the delivery of the program and capitalize on opportunities to improve service to taxpayers.

We will work with Ontario to begin the implementation of the Business Number as the file identifier for businesses and complete the development of business requirements for the delivery of the Corporate Tax Administration for Ontario initiative over the planning period.

The CRA will implement all required federal, provincial, and territorial legislative changes, giving effect to the governments’ tax agendas and promoting efficiency in delivery.

The CRA will implement the initiatives of the Action Task Force on Small Business Issues planned for April 2008 and beyond, imposing the least burden possible on small businesses while gathering the information necessary to confirm compliance with tax-related regulations.

Enhancing our Efforts to Address Non-Compliance

Effective processes to identify non-compliance are essential for ensuring that individuals pay their required taxes. Our strategies are designed to make administration of the tax system more equitable; recover more revenue for federal, provincial, and territorial governments; and impose less burden on compliant taxpayers. For example, our redeveloped GST/HST systems will enable us to improve compliance and decrease the risk of fraud. Improved data collection will allow us to enhance risk assessment and workload management, as will better client profiling with an integrated view of client accounts. The new system will also facilitate debt recovery across revenue lines through automated offsets and enable us to deny GST/HST refunds to taxpayers who fail to comply with requests for supporting documentation or to file income tax returns.

Specific program priorities we will pursue over the planning period, in furtherance of our program strategies to enhance service delivery and our efforts to address non-compliance, are listed in the table below.

Priority Initiatives—Assessment of Returns and Payment Processing

Accounts Receivable and Returns Compliance (PA3)

Program Overview

Our Accounts Receivable and Returns Compliance program activity ensures compliance with tax laws for filing, withholding, and payment requirements, including amounts collected or withheld in trust on behalf of the Government of Canada, as well as provinces, territories, and certain First Nations.

Our Accounts Receivable sub-activity is responsible for the timely collection of overdue accounts for all taxes, levies, duties, and other amounts, and assures effective tax debt management. This sub-activity also deals with the collection for other departments of non-tax debts related to overpaid CPP and EI benefits, the collection of defaulted student loans, and other Human Resources and Social Development Canada programs.

In our Trust Accounts sub-activity, the Non-filer/Non-registrant program pursues unfiled personal and corporate income tax returns, as well as the registration of businesses that have not registered for the GST/HST as required. Our Employer/Payroll and GST/HST non-compliance program carries out activities related to filing returns and remitting payroll source deductions (encompassing taxes and CPP/EI premiums) and GST/HST returns.

Program Resources

Measures—Accounts Receivable and Returns Compliance

Program Strategies

The Accounts Receivable and Returns Compliance program activity supports the achievement of the CRA’s strategic outcome by ensuring that taxpayers pay their total tax debt. We will continue to reinforce our processes and enforcement approaches aimed at addressing non-compliance and maximizing tax debt collections. In so doing, we will strengthen our core business of protecting Canada’s revenue base.

Enhancing our Efforts to Address Non-Compliance

Maximizing tax debt collections continues to be a key priority for CRA. We recognize that non-compliance does occur, and we address this is by working hard to manage the growth in the accounts receivable inventory.

We will maintain our core business of maximizing tax debt collections by exceeding our target for cash collections and resolving new arrears on a timely basis. The reduction of the level of aged inventory will be another one of our goals. We will implement an insolvency strategy that will improve the collectability of the debt portfolio. By using the resources available in the National Collections Call Centre, the annual instalment and minor balance campaigns will run. The creation of national inventories for new accounts and workloads will continue. In support of progressive integration and working with our partners, we will pursue the creation of specialized work teams and centres of expertise for the Aggressive International Tax Planning complex workload.

We want to strengthen the CRA’s position as an attractive and effective service provider by implementing our business transformation technologies and processes.

Using the Integrated Revenue Collections platform as the fundamental tool on this path, we will continue towards the adoption of an integrated taxpayer/debtor-centred approach aimed at modernizing our procedures towards collections.

We will also be adopting new technologies to enhance strong core performance, and to allow for improved analytical capacity and associated risk-based approaches.

Specific program priorities we will pursue over the planning period, in furtherance of our program strategies to enhance our efforts to address non-compliance, are listed in the table below.

Priority Initiatives—Accounts Receivable and Returns Compliance

Reporting Compliance (PA4)

Program Overview

The Reporting Compliance program activity addresses the accuracy and completeness with which taxpayers report their tax liability. It covers a range of audit and enforcement sub-activities. Major functions include examinations, reviews, audits, and investigations to ensure compliance with federal, provincial, and territorial income tax and GST/HST laws.

The Reporting Compliance program activity conducts more than 386,000 compliance actions every year and refers over 200 investigations to the Public Prosecution Service of Canada.

The key sub-activities are:

Audit deals with individual audits, business audits, international tax, and tax avoidance. This is the core of our audit activities, where the majority of the Reporting Compliance resources are invested. We also conduct special audits of charities and registered pension plans.

Our investigations sub-activity investigates suspected cases of tax evasion and fraud, pursues criminal prosecutions, and publicizes convictions of tax law offenders to deter others. In addition, our Special Enforcement Program helps combat organized crime by conducting audits of those who are known or suspected of gaining income from illegal activities.

The Reporting Compliance program activity is also responsible for administering the Voluntary Disclosures Program. The program encourages taxpayers to come forward and correct past omissions to comply with their legal obligations relating to taxation.

Our Scientific Research and Experimental Development (SR&ED) sub-activity is a federal tax incentive program that encourages Canadian businesses to conduct research and development in Canada. Annually, the SR&ED tax incentive program provides over $3 billion of tax credits to over 18,000 claimants.

Other functions include research and analysis of reporting compliance behaviour and trends, as well as the identification and assessment of tax compliance risk. These activities, and other tools we develop, contribute to the CRA’s understanding of compliance challenges and how best to address them.

Program Resources

Measures—Reporting Compliance

Program Strategies

The vast majority of taxpayers comply with tax laws when provided with the proper information, tools, and assistance. When they do not, the CRA’s strategy is to identify and address the most serious reporting non-compliance issues and cases, take appropriate action, and deter future non-compliance. To this end, we review all returns, continually refine our understanding of non-compliant taxpayer behaviour, improve risk management and targeting techniques, and sharpen the focus of our audit and investigation resources.

In addressing reporting compliance strategies, we will seek to achieve operational excellence by focusing on the following.

Strengthening Service

Businesses that operate in multiple provinces and territories will often have tax payable to more than one jurisdiction, which all have various tax rates. As a service to provincial and territorial governments, we are enhancing programs that address interprovincial tax avoidance and provincial income allocation. This will help ensure an accurate calculation and an appropriate transfer of tax payments to our client governments.

Under the Corporate Tax Administration for Ontario initiative, we will integrate all audit activities for federal and Ontario corporate income tax accounts. These integrated audits will decrease the administrative burden for Ontario corporations by over $100 million and result in lower compliance costs for taxpayers and greater efficiency in tax administration in advance of full harmonization in 2009.

The CRA plays an important role in administering certain federal, provincial, and territorial tax credit programs. In the 2007 Federal Budget, the Minister of Finance announced a review of the SR&ED tax incentive program with the view to improving the program, including its administration, to further encourage research and development within the business sector in Canada.

CRA will assess the feedback received during this joint Department of Finance-Canada Revenue Agency consultation on improving and responding to the government’s direction and changes to the program when they are announced.

Enhancing our Efforts to Address Non-Compliance

When the CRA undertook a comprehensive agency-wide review of the risks facing tax administration in Canada in 2004, it identified aggressive tax planning, the underground economy, GST/HST compliance, non-filers/non-registrants, and collections as areas requiring our focus. Over the planning period, we will continue to review the risk elements relating to our current compliance priorities and identify emerging compliance risks.

Canadians must pay taxes on income earned outside Canada, but some taxpayers conceal income offshore. Additional funding announced in the 2007 Federal Budget has been provided to address this concern. A portion of this funding was allocated to increase our ability to deal with high-risk cases involving international tax avoidance, addressing concerns such as treaty abuse, determination of residency, and abuse of the law in the international context. As a result of the additional high-risk cases completed, we expect substantial returns and significant case precedents to clarify the scope of Canadian tax law at the international level.

The International Audit program also used some of the new funding to hire more senior international auditors to work on complex transfer pricing audits. We expect the number of cases completed and recoveries made in 2008-2009 to continue to increase over the next few years as the auditors gain experience.

From 2003 to 2006, the CRA saw a significant increase in tax shelter investments. For 2008-2009, a portion of this new funding has been allocated to address tax shelter cases and we expect an increase in the number of audits completed.

We are persevering in our work to combat the underground economy and address high-risk GST/HST compliance issues. We are conducting an analysis of the results of pilot projects begun in 2005-2006 that will enable us to form effective compliance strategies to deal with these matters.

The volume of commercial activity associated with the Internet grows each year, and this increases the potential for new compliance risks. To meet the emerging challenges in addressing reporting compliance for Web-based businesses, we are developing new audit strategies that are tailored for this type of business activity.

The CRA continues to implement a compliance communications strategy action plan to inform taxpayers of their obligations and the consequences of not meeting them. The strategy also entails demonstrating that the CRA takes decisive action against non-compliance so that taxpayers can make choices in full knowledge of the inherent risk of such behaviour. This forthright approach to communication enhances trust.

Specific program priorities we will pursue over the planning period, in furtherance of our program strategies to enhance service delivery and our efforts to address non-compliance, are listed in the table below.

Priority Initiatives—Reporting Compliance

Appeals (PA5)

Program Overview

The Appeals program activity resolves disputes between the CRA and taxpayers by conducting fair and impartial reviews. We provide this service by reviewing decisions contested by taxpayers and benefit recipients, in the areas of income tax, commodity taxes, pensionability of employment under the Canada Pension Plan, and the insurability of employment under the Employment Insurance Act. In the event of any subsequent appeals to the courts, we are responsible for collaborating with the Department of Justice.

We are also responsible for managing the administration of the Taxpayer Relief Provisions across all CRA program activities and the newly-formalized service complaints resolution process for the CRA.

Program Resources

Measures—Appeals

Program Strategies

The Appeals program activity supports the achievement of the CRA’s strategic outcomes by providing a redress mechanism for taxpayers. The protection of Canada’s revenue base can be affected by the public’s confidence in the fairness of the overall tax administration system and Canadians’ trust in the integrity of the CRA.

Strengthening Service

The objective for the Appeals program activity is to ensure Canadians continue receiving a timely and impartial review of their contested decisions. In support of this, we will examine options to enhance the service delivery of the Appeals program by continuing the review to strengthen our core business processes and operations.

To improve timeliness, we will continue to build on the efficiencies resulting from the creation of intake centres in two Tax Centres that receive Income and Commodity tax disputes. We will finalize the creation of the centres of expertise in selected Tax Services Offices for our Appeals Large File Program to improve this program delivery.

We will maintain and build on the established CPP/EI Program performance goals in order to improve timeliness and efficiencies resulting from the improved state of the CPP/EI inventory.

Canadians expect to receive quality service from the CRA. There will be situations, however, where the service we provide will result in complaints. We must ensure that the complaints received from taxpayers are handled in a timely and consistent manner. Accordingly, we have enhanced the process for resolving service-related complaints through the data collection, analysis, and reporting of these activities. This formalized process will make the CRA more transparent and accountable, and provide taxpayers with an additional level of confidence in the CRA.

To meet taxpayer demands and increase accessibility of our services, we will continue the work to enhance our electronic capabilities of the online appeals services that we provide.

Reinforcing Trust

The public’s confidence in the fairness of our administration of Canada’s tax laws is fundamental to the protection of Canada’s revenue base. To reinforce this trust, the Taxpayer Relief Provisions permit the CRA to cancel or waive penalties and/or interest for taxpayers who are unable to comply due to circumstances beyond their control.

To improve consistency and provide better reporting of the program, we will enhance the capabilities for the administration of the Taxpayer Relief Provisions program. In addition, we will foster stronger working partnerships across the CRA when conducting quality reviews of completed Taxpayer Relief Provisions files.

Specific program priorities we will pursue over the planning period, in furtherance of our program strategies to enhance service delivery and reinforce trust, are listed in the table below.

Priority Initiatives—Appeals

Benefit Programs (PA6)

Program Overview

The Benefit Programs program activity supports the efforts of federal, provincial, and territorial governments to assist families and children, low- and moderate-income households, and persons with disabilities. We provide Canadians with benefits, credits and other services that contribute directly to their economic and social well-being. The CRA administers three federal programs that issue benefit payments:

• the Canada Child Tax Benefit (CCTB);
• the Goods and Services Tax/Harmonized Sales Tax (GST/HST) credit; and
• Children’s Special Allowances (CSA).

The CRA also delivers the Universal Child Care Benefit (UCCB) on behalf of Human Resources and Social Development Canada and will administer the new Working Income Tax Benefit advance payments based on estimated annual entitlements. It also administers the Disability Tax Credit, under which entitlements are delivered at the time individual income tax and benefit returns are processed rather than as direct cash payments.

With the July 2007 launch of the Ontario Child Benefit program, we now administer 18 ongoing benefit and credit programs on behalf of the provinces and territories. As well, we deliver one-time payment programs to respond to the immediate priorities of governments and we support the administration of programs (ranging from social assistance to extended health benefits) through data exchange and data transfer services that we provide for other levels of government. In total, the CRA administered 72 different benefit-related programs and services for provinces, territories, and other government departments in 2006-2007.

This program activity is divided into two sub-activities, both of which work in concert to ensure that Canadians receive their rightful entitlements:

Benefit Enquiries provides benefit recipients with the tools, assistance, and information they need by maintaining high-quality services on the telephone and through self-service and in-person channels.

Benefit Programs Administration is responsible for issuing more than $15 billion in benefit and credit payments on behalf of the federal, provincial, and territorial governments. This sub-activity provides the right tools and information so that potential recipients can provide us with the information we need to register them on the appropriate benefit rolls and ensure that they receive timely and accurate benefit payments. Review activities are conducted to verify that only eligible recipients receive benefits and credits and that the amounts they receive are correct in accordance with the legislation. As the number of benefits-related requests for redress is negligible, the workload is handled under Tax Services Appeals (PA5).

Program Resources

Measures—Benefit Programs

Program Strategies

The Benefit Programs program activity supports the achievement of the CRA’s strategic outcome for benefits. As we process millions of timely and accurate payments each year for CCTB, UCCB, and GST/HST credit recipients, including payments under related provincial and territorial benefit and credit programs, Canadians depend upon us to maintain excellence in the delivery of benefit programs.

Strengthening Service

We continue to invest in technology as part of our flexible infrastructure.

We will enhance the self-service options on the Internet, supported through the e-Services Helpdesk, to ensure both that benefit recipients have access to the timely and accurate information they need and that they are able to report changes to their circumstances that affect their payments. While we migrate benefit recipients to more affordable, accessible enquiries channels, we will also improve appropriate levels of telephone service: this continues to be the preferred method for benefit recipients to contact the CRA, especially for those who may lack access to the Internet. To ensure that timely and accurate payments are made to those who qualify, we are also pursuing the multi-year effort of reviewing our core benefit delivery systems.

Enhancing our Efforts to Address Non-Compliance

To maintain overall benefits compliance and the confidence of benefit recipients, we need to ensure that the right benefits are delivered only to the right families and individuals.

We will continue to implement our benefits compliance strategy and enhance our validation techniques, based on education, facilitated compliance and a credible enforcement presence.

Maintaining our historically strong performance in benefits administration by enhancing the CRA’s national benefit delivery infrastructure also maintains the confidence of client governments on whose behalf we deliver programs.

Specific program priorities we will pursue over the planning period, in furtherance of our program strategies to enhance service delivery and our efforts to address non-compliance, are listed in the table below.

Priority Initiatives—Benefit Programs

Corporate Services (PA7)

Program Overview

Our Corporate Services program activity includes human resource management, information technology, public affairs, finance and administration, corporate audit and program evaluation, legal services, and corporate strategies and business development. These activities are interrelated, and by managing our corporate services in an integrated manner across the CRA, we ensure that our tax and benefit services have the guidance, infrastructure, and resources needed for successful delivery.

Program Strategies

Strengthening our management infrastructure is a key priority in support of CRA program delivery over the planning period.

Human Resources

The CRA is responsible for its own human resource regime. Further to the plans we have in place related to our strategic theme of A Workplace Committed To Excellence, the following human resources priorities will be undertaken over the planning period:

• promote sustained and targeted investments in learning;
• improve the evaluation, monitoring, and reporting framework for employee performance management;
• continue to foster a healthy and safe workplace;
• enhance Competency-Based Human Resources Management;
• move forward with the CRA classification reform and reducing the number of classification groups; and
• implement the Human Resources Agreement with the Ontario Ministry of Revenue.

Information Technology

Since the CRA collects and processes massive amounts of data, information technology is a core part of our business and a key enabler for our service and compliance delivery. Our priorities related to information technology (IT) solutions and infrastructure include:

• ensure the continued integrity and security of electronic data holdings;
• enhance recovery capability of critical IT applications and services;
• implement network technology upgrades;
• continue to advance the CRA data warehouse and Business Intelligence and Decision Support foundation;
• initial planning for the move to the new Government of Canada Data Centre;
• improve efficiency in the distributed computing environment; and
• develop an application sustainability strategy and plan.

Public Affairs

This sub-activity supports the CRA’s approach to promoting voluntary compliance through effective communications. Over the planning period, the following priorities will be undertaken:

• enhance the way we talk to Canadians about the benefits of Canada’s voluntary compliance regime and the risks of participating in aggressive tax avoidance schemes; and
• implement a branding strategy in alignment with the future direction of the CRA and promote the CRA’s new brand promise.

Finance and Administration

To sustain trust in our ability to collect revenue and deliver entitlements, the CRA will maintain sound comptrollership and administrative governance. We will support the delivery of our tax and benefits programs by focusing on the following priorities:

• advance our capacities in Enterprise Risk Management;
• further improve accounting and reporting of tax revenues on an accrual basis;
• provide Ontario with accurate and timely information on its corporate income tax revenues;
• implement the Financial Monitoring Framework;
• develop a Chief Financial Officer certification process;
• implement the Continuous Controls Monitoring Framework;
• strengthen linkages between resources and results; and
• enhance our costing and reporting practices.

Corporate Audit and Evaluation

Corporate audit and evaluation activities will continue to provide the Commissioner, the Board of Management and senior management with independent and objective information, advice and assurance on the soundness of the Agency’s management framework, and on the effectiveness, efficiency and value for money of its strategies, programs and practices.

Legal Services

Our Legal Services sub-activity provides legal advice with respect to our operations and policies. To enhance CRA expertise, Legal Services will provide training in areas of access to information and privacy, confidentiality for tax information, ethics and conflict of interest, and various areas of public law.

Corporate Strategies and Business Development

The CRA is proactive in its work with provincial and territorial partners. Over the planning period, several key priorities will be undertaken in this area, including:

• complete our work in defining the services and service levels the CRA will provide under tax collection agreements;
• pursue cost recovery agreements where client governments wish to access enhanced service levels;
• introduce a national electronic registry to track and assess releases of taxpayer information more effectively;
• advance an Integrated Research Framework to enable a more efficient co-ordination of our research activities;
• review our readiness to administer additional Harmonized Sales Tax agreements; and
• proceed with the Corporate Tax Administration for Ontario initiative.

Conclusion by the Commissioner

The Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) is a high-performance organization, not only providing more services than ever before, but to more federal, provincial, territorial, and First Nations clients. Our reputation as a world-class tax administrator and benefits deliverer is rooted in our strong record of performance. Consequently, any strategies that we put in place must recognize the dependence and trust that clients have in our performance. We want Canadians to understand that we take their confidence in us very seriously.

The environment in which we operate poses significant obstacles to high-performance. Some challenges are faced by all organizations, such as ensuring business sustainability, strengthening the information technology infrastructure, and mitigating the impact of an aging workforce. Other challenges are unique to tax administration organizations, such as evolving compliance issues and growth in tax debt, which is being experienced by all OECD countries, including Canada. It is against this backdrop that we have developed our Report on Plans and Priorities 2008-2009.

To address these challenges and to ensure that we continue to function as a highly performing organization, we will concentrate on achieving excellence in two areas.

Our first strategy is centred on excellence in program delivery. We will focus on strengthening our service to Canadians, enhancing our efforts to address non-compliance, and reinforcing the trust that our clients have in us, since these are key factors in achieving our results and in safeguarding Canadians’ reliance in our operations. Our second strategy acknowledges that the basis of our strong performance is the competence and dedication of CRA employees, their commitment to learning and their responsiveness. As such, this strategy focuses on our workforce. Building a modern, progressive human resources regime is key to the success of our organization, as we continue our work to keep and attract top quality talent.

I look forward to working with my colleagues as we implement these strategies. I am confident that these strategies will continue to promote a culture of achievement and of excellence in the CRA, resulting in added value to our government clients, and contributing to the quality of life for Canadians.

 

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

• Previous Page
• Table of Contents
• Next Page