Thank you so much, Madam Chair. I'm happy to be here on behalf of Mr. Green today.
I'm going to focus on the Canada Revenue Agency.
In paragraph 7.50 of the report, the audit noted that for fiscal year 2019-20 the agency had 273 full-time equivalent employees for the enforcement of GST/HST delinquent filer compliance. The salary expenditures were $27.7 million, but those employees had a fiscal impact of about $3.2 billion during that year. That's sort of an investment with a return of more than 100 to one. The fiscal impact included the federal tax, provincial tax, interest, and penalties collected. The recommendation was that “given the good return on investment”, the agency was encouraged to do more work. It was basically that the CRA should strengthen its efforts towards tax compliance on GST/HST, and so on.
My question is regarding the 273 full-time equivalents for the enforcement of GST/HST filer compliance. Does this represent an increase, decrease, or pretty much status quo compared to fiscal years preceding that?