Thank you.
We will proceed now to Mr. Savage.
Evidence of meeting #2 for Finance in the 39th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was budget.
Evidence of meeting #2 for Finance in the 39th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was budget.
4:30 p.m.
Conservative
4:30 p.m.
Liberal
Michael Savage Liberal Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS
Thank you very much.
Thanks for coming. It's been very informative.
I have a couple of quick questions, then I have a little bit more of a detailed one.
How many Canadians' personal income taxes are e-filed these days or filed on line?
4:30 p.m.
A voice
It's increasing.
4:30 p.m.
Liberal
Michael Savage Liberal Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS
Yes, I'm interested in the trend. The reason I'm asking is whether it is better for us. Is there a saving of any kind to the department?
4:30 p.m.
Commissioner, Canada Revenue Agency
The savings, I can tell you, are not huge. The savings are about two dollars per return, I think.
4:30 p.m.
Liberal
Michael Savage Liberal Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS
So that would be $30 million, maybe? What number would that be?
4:30 p.m.
Assistant Commissioner, Assessment and Benefit Services Branch, Canada Revenue Agency
Right now a little more than half of our returns are filed electronically, including the ones filed through tax preparers and the ones filed directly by taxpayers themselves.
4:30 p.m.
Commissioner, Canada Revenue Agency
It's going up by a few percentage points every year.
4:30 p.m.
Liberal
Michael Savage Liberal Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS
Can you tell me how many taxpayers we have who file? How many Canadians do not file their taxes, and what is the cost of pursuing them?
4:30 p.m.
Commissioner, Canada Revenue Agency
Do not file? That's a hard one to answer.
4:30 p.m.
Liberal
Michael Savage Liberal Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS
What do you allocate in terms of your budget to pursue them?
4:30 p.m.
Commissioner, Canada Revenue Agency
We do allocate a significant effort to that. I don't want to quote the committee a figure that is not right, but we do reassess or assess quite a number of non-filers every year.
Do you have the number, James?
4:35 p.m.
Chief Financial Officer and Assistant Commissioner, Finance and Administration Branch, Canada Revenue Agency
Regarding the efforts you're talking about, we have two programs within the agency. One is what we call “filing and remittance compliance”, which refers to collecting accounts receivable, but it also refers to getting people to file returns that have not filed returns. That activity altogether represents about 19% of our program activity, or about $615 million in total.
We also have a program that we refer to as “reporting compliance”. That's where people have filed returns but we're auditing the returns to ensure that the returns are correct and that all income is reported. As I say, we call that program “reporting compliance”, which represents about 34% of our total or approximately $1.1 billion.
4:35 p.m.
Liberal
Michael Savage Liberal Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS
Okay. Thank you.
My last point is to follow up on the points made by Mr. McCallum and Mr. Turner. In terms of the cost to business, particularly smaller business, you indicated that you don't have a sense of that. I think the question was, have you done any studies around that or have you considered doing studies in terms of the cost to Canadian business? I'd just be interested in your view on that.
4:35 p.m.
Commissioner, Canada Revenue Agency
Brian, do you want to answer? I think the studies are mainly in the Department of Finance.
4:35 p.m.
Acting Assistant Commissioner, Legislative Policy and Regulatory Affairs Branch, Canada Revenue Agency
We have not. The sector analysis before the implementation of a tax policy change like that would typically happen at the finance department and other departments; we don't prepare that type of analysis.
I would just remind members that of course any costs incurred by business would be deductible as a business expense if there were costs incurred with the changes. So that certainly would be something. Of the money we have, about two-thirds of that is going to outreach and information and to working with associations to try to make sure small business is ready for the change.
4:35 p.m.
Conservative
Garth Turner Conservative Halton, ON
Thank you.
Mr. Savage wanted to go back to that question, which hadn't really been answered, but you have provided part of that. In fact, we don't have an answer, at least on that.
It is an issue that has come up; it is an issue of concern to us that a lot of small-business operators have been somewhat startled by what they have been led to believe are large compliance costs.
Again, who should we talk to, in your estimation, to try to nail down what the compliance costs are? Would there be any recommendation there?
4:35 p.m.
Acting Assistant Commissioner, Legislative Policy and Regulatory Affairs Branch, Canada Revenue Agency
I think there are some gentlemen from the Department of Finance coming on Wednesday who might be able to talk to you about that.
4:35 p.m.
Conservative
Garth Turner Conservative Halton, ON
Okay, but they're sort of the esoteric guys; you're the practical guys.