Evidence of meeting #136 for Finance in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was million.
A recording is available from Parliament.
10:15 a.m.
Chief Financial Officer and Assistant Commissioner, Finance and Administration Branch, Canada Revenue Agency
There's a couple of things I would want to take from your question. The backlog of compensation cases within the agency right now stands at about 25% of all CRA employees that have been—
10:15 a.m.
Chief Financial Officer and Assistant Commissioner, Finance and Administration Branch, Canada Revenue Agency
We have roughly 40,000. So you could say roughly one-quarter, or 10,000 people. It's a significant number. One of the things in the agency that is much better is that we have our own compensation advisers. We have people that our employees can go to directly to talk about their pay and to get additional information. Although that doesn't resolve the issues of overpayments or underpayments, at least we have a line of sight with regard to doing that. This also gives us an opportunity to understand what's happening from the employee's perspective and also to look forward to doing that. Policy has come out right across government that talks about the overpayments, especially as we talk about the tax year, and all of those individuals who had overpayments were encouraged to connect with compensation advisers, either within their own departments or in Miramichi, to identify the fact that they've had an overpayment. This is where it fits in to getting amended T4s and looking at how you recover the overpayment.
The policy right now is that no payments will be recovered until the amended T4 happens. So it's along the lines of our recognizing that there have been challenges. We aren't putting any repayment plans in place until these things have been resolved. Once we know that the T4 has been amended and the appropriate amount is in there, we will start working with the employees to figure out a recovery plan.
10:15 a.m.
NDP
Peter Julian NDP New Westminster—Burnaby, BC
Is there any budget or provision for a replacement system?
10:15 a.m.
Chief Financial Officer and Assistant Commissioner, Finance and Administration Branch, Canada Revenue Agency
Not within our supplementary estimates. No, there isn't.
10:15 a.m.
Liberal
Greg Fergus Liberal Hull—Aylmer, QC
Thank you very much, Ms. Ramcharan, Mr. Gallivan and Mr. Trueman. I will come back to the issues of the Phoenix pay system.
I have the privilege of representing the riding of Hull—Aylmer. However, the problems related to the Phoenix pay system are among the difficulties my constituents are facing.
In response to a question from Mr. Julian, you said that about 10,000 Canada Revenue Agency employees were affected by the problems caused by the Phoenix pay system. You said there were pay advisors who could at least interact directly with your employees. Congratulations, you are among the agencies or departments who have that opportunity.
In your presentation, you said that you needed $1.3 million to support the increased workload.
Were you talking only about an increase in the workload of agency employees or rather of all Canadians or federal public servants?
Can you clarify?
10:20 a.m.
Chief Financial Officer and Assistant Commissioner, Finance and Administration Branch, Canada Revenue Agency
The 1.3 that we're asking for has nothing to do directly with our employees within the agency. The 1.3 is related to the support that our tax specialists will provide to all federal public servants who are having problems with Phoenix. It's not an internal CRA issue. It's related to CRA providing support to all federal public servants who are having problems with their T4s.
10:20 a.m.
Liberal
Greg Fergus Liberal Hull—Aylmer, QC
Thank you for that very important clarification.
How many public servants would you say have had problems related to income tax? Can you give us an estimate? What does the $1.3-million amount represent? What was the increase in the workload?
10:20 a.m.
Assistant Commissioner, International, Large Business and Investigations Branch, Canada Revenue Agency
We know that it affects several thousand public servants because one of the measures taken by the Canada Revenue Agency was to create a telephone service for public servants affected by the Phoenix pay system. To date, more than 10,000 public servants have called us directly.
The Canada Revenue Agency has produced forecasts for the fiscal year that is starting out. According to the budget, money will be set aside to process amended T4 slips, in addition to the funding we are seeking today. I'm not sure what the amounts are, but I know that the agency's experts are predicting that a higher number of amended T4 slips will have to be processed than we were expecting. Several thousand amended T4 slips are coming.
10:20 a.m.
Liberal
Greg Fergus Liberal Hull—Aylmer, QC
Thank you very much, Mr. Gallivan.
You probably had to provide a more accurate estimate of the workload increase to determine that you needed an additional $1.3 million. Not only 10,000 public servants are affected. There are 300,000 public servants in the federal government. There are at least 200,000 cases related to problems caused by the Phoenix pay system.
Can you give me a more refined estimate?
10:20 a.m.
Chief Financial Officer and Assistant Commissioner, Finance and Administration Branch, Canada Revenue Agency
In terms of some of the background notes that I have, Public Services and Procurement Canada, which is responsible for the management of Phoenix, has estimated that between 100,000 and 150,000 amended tax slips will be required, so that's the neighbourhood.
10:20 a.m.
Liberal
Greg Fergus Liberal Hull—Aylmer, QC
Is that estimate reflected in the requested amount of $1.3 million?
10:20 a.m.
Chief Financial Officer and Assistant Commissioner, Finance and Administration Branch, Canada Revenue Agency
Yes.
10:20 a.m.
Liberal
Greg Fergus Liberal Hull—Aylmer, QC
You're talking about the 2016 fiscal year, and not the 2017 one. Do you think that figure will increase or perhaps remain the same for the 2017 fiscal year?
10:20 a.m.
Chief Financial Officer and Assistant Commissioner, Finance and Administration Branch, Canada Revenue Agency
It's really hard to tell right now. It will depend on what kinds of improvements happen to the system. It will depend on whether the backlog reduces. There are too many variables to really have a good sense of what that would look like.
10:20 a.m.
Liberal
Greg Fergus Liberal Hull—Aylmer, QC
The $1.3 million sought takes into account the increase over the 2016 fiscal year. Those are expenses you have already incurred and you still have no estimate for this fiscal year.
Will you have that estimate in a few months, or have you already planned the increase? I would like to get clarifications on that.
10:20 a.m.
Chief Financial Officer and Assistant Commissioner, Finance and Administration Branch, Canada Revenue Agency
Yes. No, and in budget 2018 we did seek additional resources to help support us. We will be receiving additional dollars. I can't remember the exact amounts.
Sorry. I didn't bring my budget 2018 documents with me, but we will be seeking additional amounts related to Phoenix in the same area of support as well.
10:20 a.m.
Liberal
Greg Fergus Liberal Hull—Aylmer, QC
Forgive me for not looking carefully at those numbers, but we would love to get them. If you could please report back to the chair on that, I would love to know what that number represents and what your estimate it would be for the 2017 taxation year.
10:25 a.m.
Chief Financial Officer and Assistant Commissioner, Finance and Administration Branch, Canada Revenue Agency
Oh, we do have it.
For next year we are roughly estimating around $4 million, so it's a bigger number.
10:25 a.m.
Liberal
Greg Fergus Liberal Hull—Aylmer, QC
It's a much bigger number. Is that because there are a greater number of adjustments that you would expect to have?
10:25 a.m.
Chief Financial Officer and Assistant Commissioner, Finance and Administration Branch, Canada Revenue Agency
Well, if you think about it, the tax year is starting on April 1, 2018, so this is for money....
A lot of the work that we're going to do is going to start to ramp up as we get into tax season. That's why you're seeing a much more significant number. It will be based on our experience from this past year in terms of the support that we would have needed.
10:25 a.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Wayne Easter
We will have to leave it there.
We're now on to five-minute rounds.
Mr. Poilievre.
10:25 a.m.
Conservative
Pierre Poilievre Conservative Carleton, ON
Can you share with us some of the performance requirements and incentives that are in place for your officials to deliver revenue through their audits and assessments, just in list form?
10:25 a.m.
Assistant Commissioner, International, Large Business and Investigations Branch, Canada Revenue Agency
The first one might be what we call the audit change rate. In other words, of the audits that they take past certain threshold hours—20 hours in small and medium enterprises, 200 hours in large businesses—once they pass that preliminary phase, how many of those audits result in a change of one form or another. That's 75%.
Depending on the audit line, we have quality expectations.