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Results: 451 - 461 of 461
View Marty Morantz Profile
CPC (MB)
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
My question is directed to CRA officials. I want to go back over some recent history. Before this crisis happened, there were two recent reports highlighting significant difficulties with CRA, particularly around the accuracy of service and call centres. There was a CFIB report showing that only 51% of callers received an answer to their inquiry regardless of wait times. Only 60% of callers received complete or above and beyond guidance information, with 41% receiving incomplete or incorrect information. The CFIB gave the agency a grade of D minus. Of completed calls, only 51% were rated as good, 28% as acceptable, and 21% as poor.
That was the CFIB report, but what I find even more interesting is that there was another report, called “Serving Canadians Better”, which was actually retained by CRA. They hired Stantec Consulting to do a report on their call centre service. That report said that 83% of respondents felt that they had service that did not meet their needs, and 71% of respondents felt that they haven't yet reached their service improvement goal. Only 28% were confident in CRA's future direction, and some of the words they associated with CRA were “slow”, “incompetent”, “bureaucratic”, “difficult”, “complicated”, "inefficient” and “frustrating”. That was from a report that CRA actually requisitioned for its own information.
My question is this. Given this massive amount of resources and new programs required because of the crisis and dedicated to the COVID-19 response, and given these historical difficulties with the agency that I've talked about, how are Canadians to have confidence in CRA that they will receive timely and accurate information in this time of need and, more importantly, that they will receive their refunds and benefits, including the late-coming wage subsidy, on a timely basis?
Frank Vermaeten
View Frank Vermaeten Profile
Frank Vermaeten
2020-04-16 19:25
I'm happy to answer that question.
I think you're right, in that there have been a number of programs, a number of reports, and they've been quite critical of our call centres. I think we've done a lot to try to respond to that.
One of the challenges we had in the past was the technology. We didn't have the technology to do some of the basic things that are needed to ensure high quality. That issue has been resolved. We now have call recording and a centralized listening team. That allows our centralized listening team to listen to these recordings, find out where the information is inaccurate and address those problems, so we've been able to provide better answers. As a result, now we're consistently hitting a target of 88% to 90% in terms of accuracy, which is a significant improvement, so we feel very confident about that.
Certainly, call centres remain a challenge, particularly now. We have extremely high volumes. We're dealing with the high volumes of the regular tax season that's going on, and on top of that the challenges of the financial pressures that people are facing—they're calling us on that—and then on top of that, of course, the new programs that have been launched.
I'd say that with respect to our ability to provide funding and refunds and do that accurately, I think we are doing a very good job.
I think it has been mentioned that the GST credits are additional significant amounts that were announced by the government. We delivered that roughly a month ahead of schedule. Those payments went out on April 9. It was the single biggest payment in history in terms of the Canadian government providing those payments.
We're providing the Canada child benefit enhancement. That will be delivered on schedule, probably slightly ahead of time, and everything is on track with that.
With CERB, I think we were able to deliver exactly on schedule. We said that it would take us approximately three weeks after the parameters were locked down. As a matter of fact, the parameters weren't locked down completely until shortly before the release, and we managed to do that. In addition to that, we've managed to adjust the program to reflect the latest changes to the program—for example, the $1,000 exemption of earnings. I think we've responded quite well.
Are we on track for the wage subsidy? I believe we are very much on track. Again, the legislation passed only a very short time ago, which did lock down the parameters. Even then, throughout that process—a very short process, which Parliament responded to very quickly—there were some changes made, and that required changes from our side, but I think we are certainly on track. We said three to six weeks after the parameters were locked down, so we're certainly on track for that. As I said previously, our plan is to launch—
Mr. Marty Morantz: I have—
View Marty Morantz Profile
CPC (MB)
I appreciate that.
I did receive a response to my OP question, which did confirm that your internal estimate is that 12% of Canadians were getting incomplete and incorrect information still. I want to point out that this is not the past; this is recent for these two reports, particularly the CFIB report that came out in January and the “Serving Canadians Better” report, which you retained Stantec Consulting for, in November.
Do I have time for one other quick question, Mr. Chair? I wanted to turn to Ms. McDonald if she's still on the call.
Frank Vermaeten
View Frank Vermaeten Profile
Frank Vermaeten
2020-04-02 15:06
Thank you very much. Thanks for that question.
Certainly we are preparing ourselves for a high volume of applications, should it be necessary to process a high volume of applications.
The CRA is used to dealing with high volumes. During the tax filing season, we see millions of returns. During the last two or three days, we can typically receive six million tax returns. That kind of high volume is something we are used to.
We've set up the application system to be automated, so you can apply through My Account, through the portals. You can also apply through an automated phone service by putting in your social insurance number and a bit of information. You can apply that way. In that sense, we're going to be able to deal with a high volume. We've also put in place additional call agents to be able to deal with phone calls if people have any questions.
The good thing is that we're also partnering with Service Canada so that both systems are in place. Generally speaking, the people who are EI-eligible will tend to go to Service Canada to apply there for the CERB, while people who are not EI-eligible—mainly the self-employed, contract workers, gig economy workers and perhaps those who don't have a strong attachment to the labour force—would come over to the Canada Revenue Agency for their applications. In that way we will be spreading the load.
With respect to the wage subsidy, it's certainly welcome. We'll be administering that as well. We expect, of course, that the wage subsidy will result in more people returning to work more quickly, as well as receiving wages from their employers even if they're not working. In that sense, the workload we would have from the CERB would be reduced.
View Matthew Green Profile
NDP (ON)
Thank you very much.
In your opening statement, you referenced the challenges of our constituency staff in connecting Canadians to the critical services of government, and we see here reference in a fall 2017 report of the Auditor General on the CRA's call centres, finding that the call centre agents answered only one-third of the calls to the call centre, largely due to call volume. In my riding of Hamilton Centre, we will serve hundreds of people a week on filing very simple tax forms to be able to get them back their returns, yet with this COVID-19 epidemic, our very real concern is that, as we get into social distancing, we won't be able to maybe provide the same quality of face-to-face service that we have in the past.
What efforts are you taking to ensure Canadians can access CRA services through call centres and online?
View Tom Lukiwski Profile
CPC (SK)
Minister, I'm very sorry, but I'm going to have to say this. In the essence of time, that it's a great question, but if you can provide the answer to this committee through the clerk in written form, we'll make sure we distribute that and share that with the rest of the committee.
View James Cumming Profile
CPC (AB)
Okay.
Mr. Weissman, you talked about training for Revenue Canada officers. You have experience, particularly with returns. For persons with disabilities and seniors, a lot of the files are simple returns. Are we at a point with technology now, given that Revenue Canada has a lot of the information they require, to simplify that process and lessen the burden on Revenue Canada so that they can focus on more complex issues? Are we getting close to the point where we can look at potentially doing that?
Peter Weissman
View Peter Weissman Profile
Peter Weissman
2020-02-05 16:59
My practice doesn't involve a lot of personal tax returns, but I can answer your question because I do have observations in that area.
The CRA has become more automated, especially with the easier tasks that you just mentioned. We do download client information from the CRA website when we are filling out tax returns. In the disability tax credit world, I used to have to reapply every five years because of my MS. I now don't have to apply. I don't have to reapply as often, and it's the same for some other applicants. At that level, the CRA has become much more efficient and user friendly. It's at the more difficult levels, such as in the audit field when you're on private company matters or reorganizations, that you notice the lack of training. That's not something you can automate or simplify.
View James Cumming Profile
CPC (AB)
Mr. Ball, have you solicited much feedback from the base of firms that you represent on the performance of the CRA, the timeliness of response times, just the general...? When I was back in the private sector, a big issue to a lot of small businesses was the timeliness of reporting and timeliness of how the call centres worked. Can you give us some feedback on that?
Bruce Ball
View Bruce Ball Profile
Bruce Ball
2020-02-04 12:20
Definitely. Thank you for the question.
One thing I can comment on happened yesterday. We had a meeting. We have a framework agreement with CRA where we have some joint committees. Yesterday, we were talking to CRA appeals, the area where it handles objections, tax appeals and that sort of thing. We were given an update on the status of turnaround times. It has sped up lower and middle complexity tax appeals. Now it is starting to address higher-level ones. One of the main things I took from the meeting yesterday—and a lot of other meetings, I'm just using this as an example—is that things are starting to improve. The turnaround time for appeals and objections has improved. We've heard that the turnaround time for taxpayer requests have also improved.
Another thing the CRA is implementing, which we have been helping on, is a system where taxpayers can track the requests they've made. The idea is that the CRA will log in your request, confirm you've made it and then give you status updates in terms of how it's going and when you can expect a response. That one will still take a little while to roll out, but I think, by and large, it is improving.
The phone system remains a challenge. That one, I'll be honest with you, I don't have as much background on in terms of data and that sort of thing.
Results: 451 - 461 of 461 | Page: 31 of 31

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