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The Appeals business line of the Canada Customs and Revenue Agency (CCRA) is an administrative review available to all CCRA clients, which is intended to provide them with a fair and timely redress and dispute resolution process. This process covers disputes related to customs and trade matters, assessments of income tax, excise tax, goods and services tax (GST), and harmonized sales tax (HST), as well as Canada Pension Plan (CPP) and Employment Insurance (EI) rulings and assessments. The CCRA is committed to providing Canadians with an impartial and timely review of its decisions, which contributes to the fairness of Canada's tax and customs administration.
The CCRA as a whole has issued a Fairness Pledge, in which it declares that its fairness commitment is based on service to clients that is responsive, consistent and impartial and on the recognition that its clients have specific needs and concerns. As part of the Fairness Pledge, the CCRA is committed to giving its clients accurate and understandable information, advising them of the time it will take to provide the requested service and continually working toward improving response time. The Fairness Pledge is available on the CCRA Internet website.
In February 1999, CCRA issued its 7-Point Plan for Fairness, which included:
In response to Point 1, the CCRA recently published a new declaration on client rights entitled Your Rights, which lays out what clients may expect in their dealings with the CCRA. The new declaration pledges CCRA's commitment to client rights and fair treatment. The declaration is posted in CCRA service areas across Canada. It can also be found on the back of the T1 tax guide and on the CCRA Internet website. Your Rights include:
The CCRA's Appeals Branch operates in a non-adversarial nature, with independent decision-making from other CCRA branches, and its staff has the mandate to resolve disputes between clients and the CCRA by fairly and impartially reviewing previous CCRA decisions. Approximately 70,000 objections/appeals/disputes are processed annually, with the bulk of these (50,000) for income tax.
The CCRA is actively encouraging the use of service standards. In 1999, the CCRA established the Agency Service Standards Steering Committee (ASSSC) to coordinate the development of standards and assist all operational branches and regions with the design and implementation of standards for the services that they provide. Within the context of the following CCRA strategic initiatives, the Appeals Branch is developing standards for the services it provides further to:
As a result of the Appeals Renewal Initiative (ARI), launched in 1997, the Appeals Branch committed to have periodic national surveys of a representative sample of its clients to obtain their views about the impartiality, accessibility, openness, timeliness and overall quality of the redress process. The Program Evaluation Division of CCRA's Corporate Affairs Branch was requested to conduct such a national survey in 1998 on client satisfaction with the service provided by four of its five appeals programs, namely, GST/HST, CPP/EI, Customs Adjudication, and Income Tax. Trade Administration was not included in the survey as it was not part of the Branch when the surveys were initiated.
The survey instruments used were mail back (or self-administered) questionnaires, with a different questionnaire developed to reflect the differences between the four different appeals programs surveyed. Two main questions asked respondents to rate their perceptions on different service criteria related to communications about the redress process, accessibility, timeliness, fairness and transparency of the redress process, service from staff, and the knowledge and interpersonal skills of Appeals staff. The results of the survey, released in March 1999:
Specifically, the survey found that CCRA clients showed a significant level of dissatisfaction with the time to first contact and about the lack of available information about the dispute or processing timeframes. In response to client feedback as expressed in the survey and in accordance with Point 2 of the 7-Point Plan for Fairness, the Appeals Branch developed the "30-day meaningful first contact" as its first service standard for implementation. This first contact with appellants (or clients) is through a meaningful initial letter to the client within 30 calendar days of the date an objection, dispute or appeal is received by the CCRA. The service standard is intended to increase client satisfaction in the redress process by improving service delivery.
The service standard and the initial letter expedite a dialogue with the client about their objection, appeal or dispute, provide clients with useful information, foster a common understanding of the facts, and establish realistic expectations on what services Appeals can deliver. In short, the 30-day meaningful first contact service standard and initial letter let the Appeals' clients know what kind of service they can expect, when to expect it, and from whom.
The client letter now in use includes some of the following information:
In the pilot offices, informing clients about when they should expect a decision reduced the number of phone calls made by clients to the office. Through the use of the initial letter, clients waited until their indicated due date before calling rather than calling continuously.
The standard was piloted in 12 tax services offices for Income Tax and GST/HST, as well as 6 offices for CPP/EI, all 4 Trade Administration offices, and Customs Adjudications, across Canada. In December 2000, the Appeals Branch announced that it would formally implement this service standard across Canada in April 2001. This involved changing some work processes to facilitate achieving this timeliness standard. This service standard is captured and will be monitored on an on-going basis.
The CCRA Appeals business line has exhibited the following exemplary practices in its approach to developing, implementing, monitoring and using its service standards:
Willingness of Appellants to Provide Feedback
Appellants' Expectations
Consulting with Staff
For more information on the services provided by the CCRA Appeals business line, please contact:
Nathalie Dumais
Manager
Client Consultation and Services Section
Appeals Branch
Canada Customs and Revenue Agency
22nd Floor
25 Nicholas Street
Ottawa, ON K1A 0L5
Tel (613) 952-7400
Fax (613) 952-0197
e-mail nathalie.dumais@ccra-adrc.gc.ca