Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) is one of the leading revenue-generating agencies of the federal government of Canada. It has changed the lifestyle of Canadians and businesses in the country. The CRA has created a good environment for both taxpayers and businesses. CRA changed its name from Revenue Canada to Canada Revenue Agency in a bid to provide for a more streamlined effective approach to tax administration in the nation.
Thus, the institution was able to provide better quality services. Therefore, the CRA is in a position of influencing many individuals, their investment behavior, economic development, and the economy both positively and negatively. Despite some of the contributions of CRA to the Canadian economy, there are some criticisms to justify its negative implications on the economy and finding the ways to solve the problems.
Those in support of the report would argue in favor of the CRA report card, which outlined that the CRA provided timely information to business people and taxpayers and that it was involved in maintaining proper and effective compliance to the tax system. According to the report, a survey done in 2007 showed that 472 tax practitioners as well as small and medium enterprises SMEs have provided tax services to their clients since they rely on the services of CRA. Moreover, it provided in-depth information of the performances of CRA and recommendations on how it can improve the services to all the taxpayers.
Another justification for the advantages of the CRA is that the report indicated that a continued use of IT has provided secure and responsive Canadian tax benefits and delivery, therefore, enabling the handling of large tax volumes, benefiting transactions accurately, providing timely information, and improving efficiency and cost-effectiveness. This is done through direct relationships and working together with shared services Canada, which ensures that better and reliable information technology is provided to the CRA. Therefore, such collaborative approaches encourage effective governance and development of business processes on IT projects.
The report card indicates that CRA has encouraged integrity and security, which is still something to admire about the institution. Such a task is done through the updating the CRA’s Integrity Framework and procedures for addressing employee misconduct aimed at improving the internal and audit control system. For example in 2013 the CRA undertook a comprehensive review of the security policy instrument which protects taxpayer’s information and introduce major processes aimed towards mitigating the risks and supporting employees in their responsibilities.
The report also shows that the CRA has provided quality services to Canadians. For example, a survey conducted showed that 26% of the business owners in Quebec responded and rated CRA to be effective in terms of service delivery. The report still claims that the CRA has encouraged greater accountability. For example, the Canadian minister of national revenue stated that all the CRA agents were to have identity numbers and trained on how to provide better answers from their callers. This encourages greater accountability through CRA helpline.
As much as the CRA has realized success in its operations, there are some problems associated with its existence. Based on their report card in which CRA, has been feared by small businessmen because they fear dealing with the taxman. According to a survey done in 2011, businessmen and practitioners such as accountants and auditors were intimidated based on the CRA poor customer service policy.
Moreover, in terms of the level of service of the CRA, the report card shows that the practitioners (accountants and lawyers) have a negative attitude towards CRA services. The survey also showed that half of the practitioners (52%) indicated that performance of CRA had drastically reduced over the past three years. Therefore, it implies that what many people believe to be high quality service delivery is a perception, which is relative to individuals.
However, not all the members of the public are happy with CRA in terms of service delivery. The staff members are unhappy according to a report, which showed that the proportions of the members who provide poor ratings outweighed those that provided good ratings, based on the staff, inquiries, and information. For example, in terms of staff treatment 18% of business owners and practitioners said it was good, 58% said it was acceptable and 24% said was poor.
In as much as accountability is encouraged by CRA, it has not lived to its expectations and has performed below par. This is shown by the outline of a survey carried out in November 2010, which showed that FIB’s CRA Call Centre Report Card (Second Edition) graded the CRA Helpline on five service parameters and the grade was D- for connecting to an agent, service standard levels of the institution scored grade C+, for accuracy of information, the grade was D, for accountability the grade was A-, and agent professionalism the grade was B. Therefore it implies that CRA is imperfect and not able to achieve its objective of accountability.
Based on the above mentioned benefits and criticism level against CRA, the benefits of CRA has lived to achieve better in terms of quality tax services, higher revenue generation that encourages the continued growth of the Canadian sector of economy. The limitations or critiques have been identified and good measures have been put in place to mitigate on the above mentioned challenges.