Finance committee  That's right.

Finance committee  Before the recent investments, we still had a core program. Our program has 10,000 auditors. When the minister talks about $12.5 billion a year, so $25 billion over two years, it's relative to the overall program. These are the core resources and dedicated resources that were al

Finance committee  I think I'll go to the crux of the matter, which is the difference between an accounting opinion, a legal opinion, and a litigation opinion. The agency, particularly in the branch that I lead, is working to get litigation eyes on files before we issue proposal letters to taxpayer

Finance committee  In that area, we have implemented a standardized, national, quality assurance process in which all audits are subject to quality review. We have a fairly high rate of quality review. For new auditors, it nears 100% and for experienced auditors it's at 20% or 30%. That is real-tim

Finance committee  That's correct.

Finance committee  Of the $500 million, we don't have an exact calculation. What I can tell you is that last fiscal year, our collections program collected 96.7% of all funds that were outstanding, so they closed 96.7%. The reason we don't have an exact calculation is because many of these taxpay

Finance committee  You're point is very well taken. I will make a point with respect to litigation, though. Some of these tax professionals are very creative. Some of our work in this area is policing the acceptable limits of tax planning. Sometimes we need to litigate, and even lose, to establis

Finance committee  My colleague who has carriage of that file briefed recently that there's been progress since the OAG was here. The action plan that the CRA set up in the wake of the OAG audit is coming across, but I don't have the exact number to that.

Finance committee  There's no doubt that collection situations can be tense. The employees have all kinds of training in terms of communication skills and soft skills, but it can be difficult for the taxpayer. Our collection approach is founded on communication and adaptability. We actively encoura

Finance committee  I'll talk quickly at three levels. At the first level, which is people paying voluntarily in the first place, I'll look back to last fall's “Fiscal Monitor”. In the November report, they showed that multinationals paid 7.5% more tax in the six months ending November 2017 than th

Finance committee  The last tax year the agency collected $52 billion and 96% of the new debt that arose was collected. The collectors assess things like ability to pay. They assess the liquidity of the taxpayer. They try to work through payment arrangements, a kind of softer collaborative approach

Finance committee  One of the focal points of the agency's senior leadership right now is world-class tax administration, and looking outward to other countries to see what best in class is. You spend a lot of time on the call centres. You heard some critical words from the office of the Auditor Ge

Finance committee  No.

Finance committee  The $12.5-billion annual fiscal impact is from all of our core activities. That's our base budget that we've had for decades—sales tax, large business, SMEs.... That's the overall audit effort of the agency. The $5 billion over five years is the incremental lift over and above th

Finance committee  It's six years, because there were two budgets of five years each—so six years. Much of the money is ongoing after that.