Evidence of meeting #120 for Finance in the 41st Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was cra.
A video is available from Parliament.
9:30 a.m.
Acting Chief Financial Officer and Assistant Commissioner, Finance and Administration Branch, Canada Revenue Agency
It's $53 million out of the total agency budget of $4.2 billion.
9:30 a.m.
Conservative
9:30 a.m.
Acting Chief Financial Officer and Assistant Commissioner, Finance and Administration Branch, Canada Revenue Agency
It's about that, yes.
9:35 a.m.
Conservative
Brian Jean Conservative Fort McMurray—Athabasca, AB
So in fact over the entire amount, the reductions are around 2%—for the entire time period, $98 million.
9:35 a.m.
Acting Chief Financial Officer and Assistant Commissioner, Finance and Administration Branch, Canada Revenue Agency
For the time period of...?
9:35 a.m.
Conservative
9:35 a.m.
Acting Chief Financial Officer and Assistant Commissioner, Finance and Administration Branch, Canada Revenue Agency
Yes, for the next few years.
When we get to...as I mentioned the budget said, it was 6.9% by maturity.
9:35 a.m.
Conservative
Brian Jean Conservative Fort McMurray—Athabasca, AB
Okay. So it's fairly inconsequential in the big scheme of things, in overall corporate governance.
9:35 a.m.
Acting Chief Financial Officer and Assistant Commissioner, Finance and Administration Branch, Canada Revenue Agency
Overall for the agency, yes.
9:35 a.m.
Conservative
Brian Jean Conservative Fort McMurray—Athabasca, AB
Absolutely.
I want to apologize, first of all, for my allergies. They happen around this time every year—tax season.
9:35 a.m.
Voices
Oh, oh!
9:35 a.m.
Conservative
Brian Jean Conservative Fort McMurray—Athabasca, AB
When I started preparing for this last night, I started to get the sniffles. I'm not sure exactly why, but when taxes come up, it usually does that. I'm not sure if it does it to a lot of Canadians.
How many electronic returns would there have been ten years ago? Just approximately, what percentage would it have been?
9:35 a.m.
Acting Chief Financial Officer and Assistant Commissioner, Finance and Administration Branch, Canada Revenue Agency
I believe when we first started it was about 16% or 17%.
9:35 a.m.
Acting Chief Financial Officer and Assistant Commissioner, Finance and Administration Branch, Canada Revenue Agency
It was very small.
9:35 a.m.
Conservative
Brian Jean Conservative Fort McMurray—Athabasca, AB
In fact, isn't it fair to say that being that it takes eight days to complete an electronic return and 50 days to do a paper copy, it's a lot less work for an electronic return?
9:35 a.m.
Acting Chief Financial Officer and Assistant Commissioner, Finance and Administration Branch, Canada Revenue Agency
It's a tremendous amount less.
9:35 a.m.
Conservative
Brian Jean Conservative Fort McMurray—Athabasca, AB
Why don't you tell us what happens with an electronic return, just very briefly, if you can? When it comes in to the agency, does a computer read it, or how does it work?
9:35 a.m.
Acting Deputy Assistant Commissioner and Agency Comptroller, Finance and Administration Branch, Canada Revenue Agency
We're talking about a largely automated process. Rather than having to key in data, move around piles of paper, and manage that pile of paper that we would otherwise have received, our computer receives that data directly through the e-filing of the individual, of the taxpayer.
Then our normal validation processes, computer-based validation processes, take place to verify the accuracy of the return and to ensure that all of the required information is there before a notice of assessment—
9:35 a.m.
Acting Deputy Assistant Commissioner and Agency Comptroller, Finance and Administration Branch, Canada Revenue Agency
Essentially it is very, very dependent on our computer system these days.
9:35 a.m.
Conservative
Brian Jean Conservative Fort McMurray—Athabasca, AB
What amount of time would you say would be spent by somebody from CRA—a physical person—on each of those returns?
9:35 a.m.
Acting Deputy Assistant Commissioner and Agency Comptroller, Finance and Administration Branch, Canada Revenue Agency
It would be very little if there were no discrepancies detected by the system.
9:35 a.m.
Conservative
Brian Jean Conservative Fort McMurray—Athabasca, AB
So it would it be a couple of minutes, would you suggest?
9:35 a.m.
Acting Deputy Assistant Commissioner and Agency Comptroller, Finance and Administration Branch, Canada Revenue Agency
I would think so.
Again, we're not program experts here—