Finance committee  What you would be referring to is if someone walks into any tax services office--

Finance committee  It could be in Montreal. You walk into a Montreal tax services office and you want information. First, that information may not be in that tax office. For instance, the tax file is probably at the Shawinigan tax centre or somewhere like that. If we don't have the information, the counter staff there will try to help them, of course.

Finance committee  In fact, we have carried out many studies to determine current and future costs. I do not have the projections in front of me, but a part of the costs have to do with the implementation that was done last year and this year, because it came into force on April 1. Afterward, we will of course monitor our expenses, but we think that we will be able to make some savings as we carry on.

Finance committee  It is the situation, in some cases anyway. The issue we're managing as a large institution is that, like everybody in the world today, we're experiencing quite a demographic change. There's quite a turnover in staff right now, and a number of people are taking their retirement. The CRA is essentially a career organization, and as someone leaves on retirement, it creates a domino effect inside the organization.

Finance committee  May I make just a couple of points on that, Mr. Chair? We do have an active compliance program of audits investigations. Whoever the taxpayer is or whatever the entity is, it looks at cases in which we have reason to believe there's non-compliance. We take the necessary measures in that case, particularly with respect to sales.

Finance committee  We have more detail on that than you would ever want to know. I'm not carrying it with me today, sir, but I'd be happy to provide the committee with a breakdown of it.

Finance committee  Well, it's certainly a situation we're looking at, particularly for the individual taxpayers. What's happening in the economy tends to lag a little bit in terms of how it's reflected in the tax debt. We're watching it closely. It's also important to know that our tax collection program is not static.

Finance committee  We're all about the same. I can say that because there is a forum with the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development that looks at debt collection, and we're a member of it. We all live the same life.

Finance committee  No, I don't have any estimates on that. In the case of contraband cigarettes, for instance, there have been some estimates used, but they have not differentiated contraband that may have emanated from reserves versus non-reserves.

Finance committee  Our compliance activities are designed to address any non-compliance around those laws. We could look and see what results we may have with respect to audits and so on that have been carried out in that area, but I'm not equipped to have that answer today.

Finance committee  Yes. First of all, we've had an increase in the volume of activity in our appeals generally overall. I'll give you one example. There have been well-known cases around charitable gifting shelters. We got thousands and thousands of cases in the appeal system. So we've had a workload increase.

Finance committee  I would just add, Mr. Chair, that these are difficult economic times. We have certain flexibilities in the act and in policy. For instance, if someone is in arrears, we attempt to work out a payment schedule. It's not our interest to see anybody go bankrupt. Personal bankruptcies see businesses go out of business, and we make our best efforts to try to work out an arrangement that makes sense.

Finance committee  The first point, Mr. Chair, is that it's difficult to do a point-in-time, year-over-year comparison. Based on a point in time, that's our forecast number of full-time equivalents, but for instance, we had the budget of January, and none of that is reflected yet in this--

Finance committee  More often than not, we were not actually anticipating any reduction. It's just at that point because we're not looking at the full-year expenditure picture. In the case of the CRA, we are always reliant on supplementary estimates (A), often (B) and (C), to get the funding for budget measures announced after the formulation of the main estimates.

Finance committee  At a point in time, based on approved authorities and the FTEs that we can afford with those approved authorities, that's accurate. I'm just saying that when it comes time to look back on 2009-10, there will probably be adjustments throughout the year that will also be reflected in the full-time equivalents.