Finance committee  That's really policy--big time.

Finance committee  We obviously do a lot more work on the financial audit side, given that there are two financial statements that we have to express opinions on each year. There is also the assessment of the agency's performance report; that's a new requirement, which we did not do previously. For the rest of it, I would say that we always audited the collection of revenues for the purposes of the public accounts of Canada.

Finance committee  The main concern we had was that the agency wasn't able to explain why the debts were increasing faster than the tax revenues. If they don't understand that, I would think it would be hard, then, for them to target certain areas. We were really saying that they needed to have a better understanding of that and that they needed to have the information base and analysis to be able to understand that.

Finance committee  I wouldn't jump to that conclusion. I think the analysis has to happen first.

Finance committee  What happens--Mr. Hood and Marian can correct me--is that there are agreements, for example, in the province of Quebec, that the Government of Quebec will collect GST on behalf of the federal government. In the other provinces, the federal government collects for the provinces. We have tried to have some efficiency within the system for the collection of those amounts.

Finance committee  I believe the vision we're referring to is on the collections only, and they did indicate to a public accounts committee that they will come forward to that committee with an action plan in September. So this committee could also ask them for that detail if you were interested.

Finance committee  We have found that the agency's governance regime has advantages. The regime has brought greater rigour and more attention is paid to administrative aspects, which are obviously what concerns us the most. We haven't done a detailed audit of human resources, but it appears to us that the agency could set up whatever regime suits it, which is understandable given its size and also...

Finance committee  That's not something we've studied or audited.

Finance committee  I'll ask Mr. Hood to respond. There is a fair percentage that is over two years; 50% is over two years old.

Finance committee  The taxpayer has 90 days in which to object. Once that 90 days is up, the account is considered in collection.

Finance committee  Those accounts go into various streams, depending on.... For some of them it's an automated system in which people will get a notice, phone calls, letters, all of that.

Finance committee  I think it's up to Revenue Canada to determine their own service standards. Again, we didn't look at that, but we're saying the longer you wait, the more difficult it is to collect. To have 50% over two years, they are obviously confident that they will get most of that, because the allowance for doubtful accounts was what....

Finance committee  In the audit on writeoffs, we were talking about accounts deemed uncollectable that are completely written off. Some efforts could be made in future if the account were to be reactivated, but the agency won't continue trying to do a lot of collection. In the last year, as Mr. Hood mentioned, there was a little over $2 billion of writeoffs, which was about double what it had been in previous years.

Finance committee  The agency recognizes and agrees with us, as I mentioned in this hearing we had just a couple of weeks ago. They were talking about new systems they wanted to put in to do data mining, which is obviously one of the ways to get there. We don't expect it to be resolved overnight.

Finance committee  Yes.