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.
9:10 a.m.
Acting Chief Financial Officer and Assistant Commissioner, Finance and Administration Branch, Canada Revenue Agency
The legislation that was put in place was for tax preparers when they're filing greater than ten returns. There is not a charge of $25 for filing a paper return. This is a disincentive for the tax preparers who don't file it electronically.
The tax preparers have access to EFILE. They can file electronically. There is not a charge to individual Canadians for that.
9:10 a.m.
Liberal
Scott Brison Liberal Kings—Hants, NS
In 2013-14 RPP forecasts, there's been a sharp drop in staffing levels for internal services, compared with 2012-13: 1,500 jobs in a single year.
Can you explain how CRA is restructuring its internal services program?
9:10 a.m.
Acting Chief Financial Officer and Assistant Commissioner, Finance and Administration Branch, Canada Revenue Agency
Yes. Actually, that's an excellent question.
That drop you're seeing in there—
9:10 a.m.
Voices
Oh, oh!
9:10 a.m.
Acting Chief Financial Officer and Assistant Commissioner, Finance and Administration Branch, Canada Revenue Agency
They're all excellent questions. Thank you.
The drop you see in corporate services from 2012-13 to 2013-14 is actually the result of our cost containment plan as part of our response to budget 2010, where our salary budgets were frozen for increments and we had to internally find the money to be able to pay.
9:10 a.m.
Acting Chief Financial Officer and Assistant Commissioner, Finance and Administration Branch, Canada Revenue Agency
Okay. Sorry.
Just very quickly, the 1,144 FTEs is just a budgetary amount; it's not in internal services. Those FTEs were taken from all the branches and put into a reserve to pay for the salary increases.
So it wasn't actually a reduction in internal services. That was just where we held the reserve to be able to pay the salary increases for all of our other individuals.
9:10 a.m.
Conservative
May 7th, 2013 / 9:10 a.m.
Conservative
Dave Van Kesteren Conservative Chatham-Kent—Essex, ON
Thank you, Chair.
Thank you for being here this morning, and thank you again for your work.
I want to tag onto what Mr. Brison was talking about, the seniors, because that is a concern.
Is there some help for seniors? Are you reaching out to seniors and helping them prepare their tax returns?
9:10 a.m.
Acting Chief Financial Officer and Assistant Commissioner, Finance and Administration Branch, Canada Revenue Agency
We do have our volunteer program, which does assist seniors. Basically we have a community volunteer program that assists people in the preparation of their tax returns.
We, as the CRA, encourage this volunteer program, and support them as best we can to assist people who do not feel comfortable using a tax preparer or doing their own taxes.
9:10 a.m.
Conservative
9:10 a.m.
Acting Chief Financial Officer and Assistant Commissioner, Finance and Administration Branch, Canada Revenue Agency
Yes, we do.
9:10 a.m.
Conservative
Dave Van Kesteren Conservative Chatham-Kent—Essex, ON
Of course, that's a service that members of Parliament could probably tap into, too. I say that because we talked about that. As staff, we have a passport clinic, and it was brought up just in the last couple of years. What about the ramifications as far as legalities if you help somebody? Is that something that's advised for members' offices, or are there some legalities that we have to be wary of ?
9:10 a.m.
Acting Chief Financial Officer and Assistant Commissioner, Finance and Administration Branch, Canada Revenue Agency
Realistically, that's a program question that I don't feel comfortable answering.
9:10 a.m.
Acting Chief Financial Officer and Assistant Commissioner, Finance and Administration Branch, Canada Revenue Agency
It's on our website; I just don't have it with me. I don't have an answer and I don't want to hazard a guess on that one.
9:10 a.m.
Conservative
Dave Van Kesteren Conservative Chatham-Kent—Essex, ON
Good. I think that's very helpful.
You mentioned a little earlier that there was some reduction in staff. What was the number of reduction in staff?
9:10 a.m.
Acting Chief Financial Officer and Assistant Commissioner, Finance and Administration Branch, Canada Revenue Agency
The total for the packages was 2,568 at maturity.
9:10 a.m.
Conservative
9:10 a.m.
Acting Chief Financial Officer and Assistant Commissioner, Finance and Administration Branch, Canada Revenue Agency
Right now, as part of these main estimates, it's just over 39,000.
9:10 a.m.
Conservative
Dave Van Kesteren Conservative Chatham-Kent—Essex, ON
I see, and is that number taken from the crew that's responsible for processing returns?
9:10 a.m.
Acting Chief Financial Officer and Assistant Commissioner, Finance and Administration Branch, Canada Revenue Agency
The 2,568? That would be across the entire agency, so it would be made up of internal services and processing returns. There are a number of initiatives under way as our contribution to the reduction of the deficit. As I mentioned in my opening remarks, there are a number of internal consolidations and efficiencies that we've been working on as an agency to be able to do that.
One of the projects that we've also been working on is our records management. As people are starting to file more electronically, our need to have paper records is diminishing, and we're adjusting our workforce and our workload accordingly.
9:15 a.m.
Conservative
Dave Van Kesteren Conservative Chatham-Kent—Essex, ON
You said, Mr. Perlman—I think it bears repeating—that 80% of returns are filed electronically.
9:15 a.m.
Acting Chief Financial Officer and Assistant Commissioner, Finance and Administration Branch, Canada Revenue Agency
As of April 30th, 80% of the returns that we received were received electronically.
