Finance Committee on Dec. 7th, 2006

[Michel Dorais]

I do not have much to add to what I have already said. Indeed, as the chair was explaining, the Board of Management has never dealt with this sort of thing; only the minister and the Agency were informed.

We are working with the community and we hope to be able to solve any problems.

[Pierre Paquette, Bloc, Joliette, QC]

There is clearly a sampling problem. So I must involve the minister; that is what you are telling me.

[Michel Dorais]

Unfortunately, I was with the Board of Management over the past two days. I therefore did not see the minutes of yesterday's meeting, but I hope it was positive.

[Pierre Paquette, Bloc, Joliette, QC]

It was in fact very positive, but once again, as I mentioned to you, it is a coincidence that you happen to be here this afternoon, on the very day following our meeting with the officials and people from the minister's office. I am taking the liberty of asking questions because it is a rather clear case of a situation that the Agency does not want, but which nevertheless occurred. I am convinced that a solution will be found, but I was asking whether within the board, for example, there was a mechanism for dealing with it.

Does the Agency have an ombudsman? For example, are there people who feel truly persecuted by the Agency. So if someone, for one reason or another, has exhausted all avenues of recourse without receiving justice, what happens then?

[Michel Dorais]

That is a very relevant question, which the minister addressed to some degree in her testimony. We have an appeal section. Any questions pertaining to the payment of taxes goes through this independent appeal system before it goes to the courts. But the minister is in the process of working on the introduction of a mechanism that would allow taxpayers or business people who feel persecuted, or who feel that they have not received good service, to have some form of redress. So she hopes to be able to report on this matter to the committee by the spring.

[Pierre Paquette, Bloc, Joliette, QC]

Do you know whether this will require a legislative amendment?

[Michel Dorais]

I don't think so. There are legislative options and non-legislative options.

[Pierre Paquette, Bloc, Joliette, QC]

Administrative—okay. So if I have any suggestions to make, I should make them to the minister. Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Brian Pallister]

Thank you very much, sir.

We continue now with Mr. Del Mastro for six minutes.

[Dean Del Mastro, Conservative, Peterborough, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, panel, for appearing today.

The CRA review has been an interesting process to this point. I want to run a couple of scenarios by you. Obviously we often have constituents come in who have problems dealing specifically with taxation, taxes payable, and services that they don't feel they're getting from the CRA.

I have an employer in my riding right now, a fairly significant employer. His receivables don't come in very frequently. He gets paid large sums of money, but infrequently. The CRA is currently demanding that his GST and his taxes be paid on a specific date, when he hasn't received the money yet. This is causing him significant fines, penalties, and harassment from the CRA.

He has gone to them several times and said, “This is how my business works, so how can we change this, how can we make this work? I want to pay my taxes, but I haven't been paid yet.” What he continues to get back is, “You must conform to how we do business.” When he doesn't conform, he gets another penalty and owes even more money. He is being called upon to pay a disproportionate sum of taxes because his business doesn't conform to the box that we've set up for the CRA.

How would you advise me to talk to this employer, who employs in excess of 200 people in my riding?

[Connie Roveto]

I think this is an appropriate question for Michel to respond to.

[Michel Dorais]

Mr. Chair, it's difficult for me, not having all the facts, but I would encourage the member to submit the facts to me. I'll make sure that it goes to the appropriate place in the agency to search for a solution in that particular case.

[Dean Del Mastro, Conservative, Peterborough, ON]

So some of these things can be dealt with on a case-by-case basis.

What we've been running into so far—and I have advocated on his behalf, albeit to people who are in a less significant position than you within the CRA—is, here is the box; where do you fit within this box? It's a frustrating process.

[Michel Dorais]

If I may, Mr. Chair, the agency will be as accommodating as it can within the law. Quite often our limitation is the law that Parliament has passed, the Income Tax Act.

Our interest is to facilitate taxpayers' payment of taxes due—no more, no less. So I would encourage the member to pass the specific facts. Then we'll look at them, and I will undertake to get back to the member.

[Dean Del Mastro, Conservative, Peterborough, ON]

Very good.

I also have a question about the appeals process. I think the issue brought forward by Mr. Paquette was a good one, with respect to an ombudsman. I am happy to hear that we are putting in an appeals process that may be a bit more of a customer-friendly—for lack of a better word—or taxpayer-friendly system, because I have a lot of people who come in and say they don't know who to talk to.

Obviously the automatic response, when you're talking to somebody on the phone, is, let me speak to your manager. I am sure that's the automatic response for everyone, and everyone can't speak to a manager. You would have nothing but managers, because that would be the only way you could conduct business. But there is frustration, and there is a high level of misunderstanding of how assessments are done.

For a lot of people who can't afford an attorney to go through an appeals process, I can't emphasize enough that this system needs to be set in place.

In the meantime, how do we go about assisting our constituents to help them through the process? What is the process right now for people who feel they have been assessed unfairly?

[Michel Dorais]

We could give the member a more technical answer by asking colleagues, but one thing I want to make sure the committee understands is that we do have an appeal process. It's a process that has been going on for quite a number of years. You can appeal online; you can appeal directly. It's made as simple as we can possibly make it, although some issues are very complex.

We're also trying to offer members of Parliament as much support as we can in order that you can answer your constituents. But what the minister referred to is that group of people who, having gone through the appeal process or having been audited, or any other interaction with the agency, might feel they have not been appropriately served. The issue of assessment is not in question, but whether they may not have been appropriately served. The minister is looking at a possible redress mechanism there.

[Dean Del Mastro, Conservative, Peterborough, ON]

Ms. Roveto, we know that this agency has only existed since it was created in 1999. This is a mandatory review of the CRA. It has been suggested that perhaps we're conducting this review while the agency is still a little bit too much in its infancy and maybe we should really be reviewing it after a ten-year period.

Would you subscribe to that theory, that maybe we're not quite looking at the CRA as it will be or as we hope it to be, that it will continue to evolve over the next few years and that might be a better time to actually conduct a more comprehensive review?

[Connie Roveto]

Mr. Chair, I believe a review after five years was part of the act. Therefore, it's part of legislation.

I'd have to say that the agency and the governance model continue to evolve. We're in the process of developing an enterprise risk management program. We've approved the policy. There have been a lot of governance items put in place. We have a fully functioning audit committee that meets in camera. The chair of the audit committee reviews the commissioner's expense reports on a quarterly basis.

So it's a work in progress. It continues to evolve, and we hope to improve in terms of all its management practices, and I think it probably would be appropriate to review the agency again in another five years.

[The Chair, Conservative, Brian Pallister]

Thank you, Mr. Del Mastro.

Perhaps if we have a federal election every year for the next few, we can continue this review for ten years.

We'll move to Madame Wasylycia-Leis now.

[Judy Wasylycia-Leis, NDP, Winnipeg North, MB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thanks to all of you for being here. I'm sorry I missed your presentation, and I'm sorry I missed the minister's presentation. So I apologize in advance if I ask any questions that have already been dealt with.

One of the questions I've raised in the past that I'd still like to pursue is the loss of the counter service in many communities across this country. I've asked questions in the past about the reliance of senior citizens and low-income residents on these centres for getting help and having questions answered and paying their taxes directly.

Mike Wallace was telling me as I came in that in fact the minister has said there will be a change and that stamping will again be brought into effect, but that only answers part of my concern. It really is the question of being able to access services directly, getting help when you need it, especially folks who may not have computers, who may not have a way to put off getting the information they need. A single-parent mom comes in and can't wait to make an appointment. She has a schedule and may just forget it then. Or a senior citizen may just pop in. It's important at that point, and I think it's very hard for some people to adapt to this new system.

So I'm wondering if you're rethinking this at all. What exactly is available and when is it available to people who need help with their taxation issues and, secondly, for payment of their taxes?

[Connie Roveto]

I think the service model is continually evolving. There definitely have been changes, and we test the changes to make sure that, hopefully, there are improvements. As the minister said prior to me, one of the models we're moving to is to have people call and make appointments at their local office. The benefit of that, to them, is that they then will be meeting with somebody who can actually help them with their service, or their question or their problem, rather than with an individual who just happens to be the next free person.

I think in terms of places where people can pay their taxes, that is expanded because you can pay at any branch. There is a bank branch in Canada on every street corner, practically. Also, the telephone...and the client service centres are open many hours a day to respond to questions. One of the things the board has been interested in is having multiple points of contact to meet the client's or the taxpayer's need.

Beyond that, Michel, is there anything you'd like to add?

[Michel Dorais]

The only thing I would add is that all the Service Canada offices can offer basic information to taxpayers on a drop-in basis, and there are quite a number of new offices, new points of service, that have opened.

[Judy Wasylycia-Leis, NDP, Winnipeg North, MB]

I appreciate the answers.

With respect to alternative places to do one's banking or pay one's taxes, there are many communities where there are no bank branches left. In many, many parts of this country there is no such thing as a bank branch on every corner.

You probably don't want the rant I gave in the House today in the context of Bill C-37. Again I will say, Winnipeg North has lost virtually all of its bank branches in ten years. The options are payday lenders, and I don't think you're suggesting we go there. It's not that simple in many, many communities, and Service Canada doesn't have the expertise to do that.

The service is not designed for communities that are not wealthy suburban areas, where they can get to a bank, and they have cars and they have computers. We're talking about ordinary communities with single-parent families and senior citizens who don't have a lot of resources but need some personal contact. They need somewhere to go when the problem is there...another day when they might not have someone to look after their kid or when they're squeezing it in between appointments.

So there still is that problem that we haven't addressed. I really fear for what this means for the spirit and soul of a community when we cut off everything that means anything in terms of services.

On top of that, I still have constituents calling. They try this number out. They have a simple question. They get a number. They press here, they press there, and they can't get through. Then they call me and say, “I can't get through.”

I said to Michel last time that what we're ending up with in terms of Revenue Canada is what happened with Immigration: government offloads. People don't know where to go, so where do they go? They go to their MP. So we have to then provide direct services because there's no one in government available. In the case of Immigration, in the space of six years we went from a 40% caseload to a 90% caseload, and it's all related to government offloading and outsourcing and the devolution....

I wonder if there's a plan to deal with this problem.

[The Chair, Conservative, Brian Pallister]

Thank you very much for that, Madam Wasylycia-Leis, and now we move to Mr. McGuire for five minutes.

[Joe McGuire, Liberal, Egmont, PE]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I wonder if Ms. Roveto could tell me how there could be no job losses at the tax centre in Summerside as the GST visitor rebate program is phased out. What has to happen there in order not to have job losses, since they're an agency and they can only bump within that one building?