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.
9:20 a.m.
Conservative
9:20 a.m.
Conservative
Mark Adler Conservative York Centre, ON
Thank you, Chair.
I want to thank the officials for being here today.
Mr. Perlman, to start, could you just walk me through...? You talked about the distinction between the paper filing and the electronic filing. When a paper filing is done, there's an administrator at the other end who, when they receive the information, inputs it. On the EFILE, what happens when that information is transmitted electronically to Canada Revenue? What's the process at that point?
9:20 a.m.
Acting Chief Financial Officer and Assistant Commissioner, Finance and Administration Branch, Canada Revenue Agency
I'm not a program expert, but it does come straight into our T1 systems. There is a verification and validation, as happens with any of our other tax returns. An individual taxpayer is treated in exactly the same way whether they process on paper or electronically.
9:20 a.m.
Conservative
9:20 a.m.
Acting Chief Financial Officer and Assistant Commissioner, Finance and Administration Branch, Canada Revenue Agency
No.
9:20 a.m.
Conservative
Mark Adler Conservative York Centre, ON
What is the acceptable level of error? You have accountants out there, and you have lay people inputting their T5 information, for example. Is there an acceptable level of error at your end, in terms of people making a mistake on inputting T5 information data?
9:25 a.m.
Acting Chief Financial Officer and Assistant Commissioner, Finance and Administration Branch, Canada Revenue Agency
The CRA's income tax system actually validates just about every piece of information that comes in. If our system can see that there is an error, it automatically generates a new notice of assessment for the individual to get the taxpayer additional funds, or not, accordingly. All of those verifications take place. There aren't any more verifications that take place if someone puts something in on paper. Just as an error on paper would be, the same errors will be caught if someone files electronically.
9:25 a.m.
Conservative
Mark Adler Conservative York Centre, ON
You talked about verification. Has any thought been given to increasing the reliability of that verification, for example, on a T5, or that all T5 slips, for example, would just have a barcode, and you would zap the barcode and the information would go in on the electronic filing. Is that something that's been considered, or is it beyond...?
9:25 a.m.
Acting Chief Financial Officer and Assistant Commissioner, Finance and Administration Branch, Canada Revenue Agency
Yes, I think it's a little beyond.
I know we are working on a number of projects involving electronic interaction with our taxpayers and our tax intermediaries. So there's My Account, My Business Account, My Payment. A lot of those are making it easier for taxpayers to interact with CRA online and to get things through a lot more quickly.
9:25 a.m.
Conservative
Mark Adler Conservative York Centre, ON
Okay.
I noticed on the CRA website that although the filing deadline is April 30, if you file electronically and you receive an error message, you have until May 7 to file. Is that correct?
9:25 a.m.
Acting Chief Financial Officer and Assistant Commissioner, Finance and Administration Branch, Canada Revenue Agency
I believe that's correct.
9:25 a.m.
Conservative
9:25 a.m.
Acting Chief Financial Officer and Assistant Commissioner, Finance and Administration Branch, Canada Revenue Agency
I'm sorry, but I don't have those statistics with me.
9:25 a.m.
Conservative
Mark Adler Conservative York Centre, ON
Is there any reason why someone would receive an error message? Is it the result of perhaps their computer or is it a result of CRA just being overwhelmed?
9:25 a.m.
Acting Chief Financial Officer and Assistant Commissioner, Finance and Administration Branch, Canada Revenue Agency
There hasn't been an issue with CRA being overwhelmed.
9:25 a.m.
Voices
Oh, oh!
9:25 a.m.
Acting Chief Financial Officer and Assistant Commissioner, Finance and Administration Branch, Canada Revenue Agency
That hasn't happened. We work with our information technology folks and Shared Services Canada to ensure that we always have capacity to accept tax returns on behalf of Canadians.
9:25 a.m.
Voices
Oh, oh!
9:25 a.m.
Acting Chief Financial Officer and Assistant Commissioner, Finance and Administration Branch, Canada Revenue Agency
As I mentioned, we did hit a record time.
The other thing is that there are a number of electronic packages that people can use to generate this. If people follow the packages, it's unlikely they'll get errors. Those packages are certified by CRA. Right now there are 31 NETFILE-certified software packages for Canadians, and five of them are free to use without restrictions.
9:25 a.m.
Conservative
Mark Adler Conservative York Centre, ON
The voluntary disclosure program is hugely successful, right?
9:25 a.m.
Acting Chief Financial Officer and Assistant Commissioner, Finance and Administration Branch, Canada Revenue Agency
Yes.
9:25 a.m.
Conservative
Mark Adler Conservative York Centre, ON
Could you talk a bit about the program itself? Is it widely promoted? I know if you go to your accountant he'll tell you all that, but would the ordinary layperson be aware of this?
