This program, of course, is just starting this year. For the last little while and on an ongoing basis, people can of course open up these tax-free savings accounts with more and more financial institutions. The requirement for reporting back to the CRA doesn't occur until the end of this year, in time for the next filing season.
Obviously, we've had a lot of questions from taxpayers. It seems to have been, as you indicated, something that's attracted quite a bit of attention. We've equipped our inquiries officers at the 1-800 number to be able to answer questions. We have materials that are published, and on our website, to help answer the obvious questions, as well as some of the ones that are less obvious. That's part of what this is all about. We believe it will be sufficient because much of the cost, as my colleague alluded to, is related to the infrastructure.
Generally in the CRA, once we have good operating infrastructure, the actual transactions themselves are a fairly modest incremental cost. It's just a matter of making sure that we can track all of this and give people an annual statement telling them the status of their tax-free savings account, and the ins and outs.
We've never done this before and we'll see how it all plays out. We have no experience with something like a tax-free savings account. Obviously, we've had experience with RRSPs, but this is quite a different vehicle and we'll learn as we go along.
If it turns out that the demands on the program are greater than we anticipated, that's something we would discuss with colleagues in the Department of Finance and Treasury Board.