ARCHIVED - RPP 2006-2007
Canada Revenue Agency

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Introductory Notes

In December 2003, the Government announced the transfer of a large portion of the customs function of the Canada Customs and Revenue Agency (CCRA) to the newly established Canada Border Services Agency. This transfer was completed on December 12, 2005, when Royal Assent was granted to Bill C-26, An Act to establish the Canada Border Services Agency. As a result of this legislation, the CCRA has legally become the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) and will continue its mandate under that name.

Mission

To administer tax, benefits, and related programs and ensure compliance on behalf of governments across Canada, thereby contributing to the ongoing economic and social well-being of Canadians

Vision

The Canada Revenue Agency will be the preferred provider to deliver tax, benefits and related programs for governments across Canada

Values

• Integrity
• Professionalism
• Respect
• Co-operation

Message from the Minister

The confidence of Canadians in the Canada Revenue Agency’s fairness and integrity is fundamental to our success in administering tax and benefit programs on behalf of governments throughout Canada. We earn that confidence through our emphasis on excellence in service, protection of information, transparency in the way we account for our performance, and fairness in our dealings with taxpayers and benefit recipients.

As Minister of National Revenue, I recognize that high levels of voluntary compliance within Canada’s tax system are rooted in the confidence of Canadians in our fairness, accountability and integrity. My priorities for the Agency will be to maintain and improve upon the current avenues of rights and appeals that provide taxpayers with a sense of confidence and certainty in dealing with the Canada Revenue Agency. As well, the CRA will make additional advances in its collections activities to reassure Canadians that Canada’s tax laws are applied fairly and consistently. This benefits all Canadians and leads to our mutual social and economic well-being.

The CRA is a powerful driver for improving business productivity, lowering the cost of government, simplifying citizens’ interaction with their governments, and ensuring responsible stewardship of taxpayers’ dollars. This is the essence of Agency 2010, an ambitious and innovative change agenda for the CRA, which is described in this report.

The 2006-2007 Report on Plans and Priorities details our objectives and strategies to continue to meet and exceed our performance record. It also includes key tax and benefit initiatives introduced in the May 2006 Federal Budget. The initiatives included in this report will help ensure simpler, more secure, and less costly options for Canadians to meet their tax obligations and receive benefits.

 

The Honourable Carol Skelton, P.C., M.P.
Minister of National Revenue

Foreword by the Chair

Each year, the Canada Revenue Agency produces a Report on Plans and Priorities outlining its objectives, strategies, performance expectations, and financial projections for the ensuing three fiscal years. It is with pleasure that I present this first report during my tenure as Chair of the Board.

Since the Agency was established in 1999, the Board has overseen the implementation of administrative policies and a unique governance regime tailored to the CRA’s mandate to administer tax and benefit programs. Having laid the groundwork, the Agency is now looking to the future. The 2006-2007 Report on Plans and Priorities is based upon our vision of the Agency in 2010, and proposes concrete initiatives that build toward this vision over the next three years.

Essential to the realization of Agency 2010 will be a stronger role for the Board of Management in ensuring transparency and accountability to Parliament, to our clients, and ultimately to Canadians. As part of its responsibility for CRA administrative policies, the Board will continue to enhance its oversight presence to make certain that the Agency exercises competent stewardship of resources, manages risks, and reports clearly on its plans and results.

CRA’s legislated mandate envisioned an Agency that would provide services to other federal departments as well as provincial, territorial, and First Nations government organizations. Building on the strength of its core business expertise, the Agency will expand the services it performs and more firmly establish the Agency as a service provider of tax and benefit services, while reinforcing accountability to our clients and to Canadians.

In order to achieve its mandate, the Agency works toward two strategic outcomes:

• Taxpayers meet their obligations and Canada’s revenue base is protected.
• Eligible families and individuals receive timely and correct benefit payments, contributing to the integrity of Canada’s income security system.

These desired outcomes, in concert with the vision for Agency 2010, provide the foundation for this report. This year, as part of our desire to improve transparency and accountability, the report includes concrete deliverables for priority initiatives within each of our seven program activities.

I am pleased to recommend this 2006-2007 Report on Plans and Priorities to the Honourable Carol Skelton, Minister of National Revenue.

 

Connie I. Roveto, ICD.D
Chair, Board of Management

Management Representation

The 2006-2007 Report on Plans and Priorities for the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) has been prepared based on the reporting principles contained in the Guide for the Preparation of Part III of the 2006-2007 Estimates: Report on Plans and Priorities and Departmental Performance Reports:

• It adheres to the specific reporting requirements outlined in the Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat (TBS) guidance;
• It is based on the Agency’s approved Program Activity Architecture (PAA) as reflected in its MRRS;
• It presents consistent, comprehensive, balanced, and reliable information;
• It provides a basis of accountability for the results achieved with the resources and authorities entrusted to it; and
• It reports finances based on approved, planned spending numbers from the Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat in the RPP.

 

Michel Dorais, ICD.D
Commissioner and Chief Executive Officer
Canada Revenue Agency

Executive Summary

The Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) has established a solid foundation of performance in tax services and benefit programs, serving 126 clients – federal, provincial, territorial, and First Nations government organizations. Our 2006-2007 Report on Plans and Priorities outlines the strategies and resources we will apply to build on this performance—while leveraging the CRA’s capacity—to implement Agency 2010, a blueprint for the next several years.

The report identifies six strategic challenges to be managed:

• the imperatives of trust, transparency, and accountability;
• demographic trends;
• technological change;
• the evolution of our administrative flexibility as prescribed in the Canada Revenue Agency Act;
• economic conditions; and
• specific compliance challenges.

Our plans to address these challenges are built on a solid and secure foundation: an organization that is efficient, accountable, well-managed, and committed to continually improving how it conducts its business. Our accomplishments as an agency create opportunities for building stronger relationships with our clients: federal, provincial, territorial, First Nations, and other government bodies.

This report identifies how we will strengthen the CRA as a nationwide agency, focusing on three themes:

• a well-defined, modern, and high-performing core business capacity;
• a governance model that reflects the best possible blend of autonomy and accountability; and
• the pursuit of business opportunities which we could deliver on behalf of our clients.

Strong and Modern Core Business

The core business of the CRA will continue to be revenue collection and benefits administration. The initiatives in this report seek to build on our existing capacity in a number of ways:

• Improve service through additional electronic service options on the Internet, more efficient and responsive telephone and in-person services, greater use of high-volume processing technologies, and enhanced outreach, education, and consultation efforts with a focus on small- and medium-sized businesses, charities, disability programs, and targeted taxpayer groups.
• Intensify our risk-based compliance approach, with particular attention to aggressive tax planning, the underground economy, the Goods and Services Tax/Harmonized Sales Tax (GST/HST) non-compliance and fraud, non-filers/non-registrants and collections, matching of information slips, registration of deferred income plans, appeals, and benefit programs.
• Strengthen our infrastructure by reviewing the “geographic footprint” of our field offices, the delivery of the Appeals program, and developing strategies for workforce change impacts from such initiatives as the assumption of collections work from the federal department of Human Resources and Social Development (HRSD), modernizing our publishing function, investing to support the integrity of our information technology (IT) systems, and integrating data management systems in program areas such as collections and charities.
• Maintain the foundation of trust in our tax and benefits system and the integrity of our internal management by strengthening our risk management process, conducting security compliance and monitoring reviews, continuing to emphasize the imperative of information confidentiality and privacy, and improving expenditure monitoring.
• Manage human resources and labour relations by implementing our Union-Management Initiative (UMI) nationally, streamlining job classification, and starting to implement our new Agency Classification Standard (ACS).

Mature the Governance Model

This plan calls on the CRA to fully use the powers and authorities given to the CRA by Parliament. Work will include the following:

• Define and strengthen accountabilities and relationships to Parliament, clients, and central agencies.
• Strengthen Agency management practices, for example, by improving our expenditure monitoring capacity, advancing our approach to integrated risk management, implementing a more strategic corporate committee structure, and refining the IT costing/decision model to treat IT as corporate infrastructure supporting the entire CRA and our clients.

Expand Business Opportunities

We believe we can build on our strengths and competitive advantages to increase the effectiveness and efficiency of revenue collection and benefits administration for all levels of government in Canada. To continue progress in providing services to clients and develop into a truly nationwide agency, the plan calls for a range of activities:

• Enhance and expand existing services and data exchange arrangements, including those with HRSD (e.g., Old Age Security, Guaranteed Income Supplement, Canada Pension Plan), the Income Verification project, and the Business Number (BN). To an increasing extent, incorporate provincial perspectives and interests into our way of doing business.
• Develop new services for clients, such as the integration of collections operations from other government departments, and pilot projects with Service Canada.
• Articulate our Agency 2010 business model by defining our core business, clients, and program/service approach, and performing market analysis.
• Develop growth strategies and plans, including the first phase of the CRA communication strategy.
• Develop a client relationship management capacity.

Implementation of the Agency 2010 blueprint will proceed within the context of a CRA resource management strategy developed to address three key needs:

• sustaining our core business operations;
• investing strategically to maintain and enhance the integrity of our infrastructure, particularly our IT systems; and
• providing for opportunities to expand services to clients in accordance with our mandate.

While this sets out an ambitious agenda for the future, it also recognizes that most of the $9.6 billion in planned spending over the three planning years will go to daily operations, principally in the areas of taxpayer services, tax and benefit processing, audits and investigations, and revenue collection. We will strengthen performance monitoring in all areas by improving measures related to timeliness, accuracy and accessibility of tax and benefits service, collection of tax debt, levels of compliance, and quality of appeal resolutions. Finally, we will accomplish this while focusing on the priority of implementing new fiscal measures that deliver $20 billion in tax relief over two years. These measures will form the basis for our Annual Report to Parliament.

 

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