Complaints about CRA up 70 per cent from pre-pandemic year: taxpayers’ watchdog

OTTAWA –

The variety of complaints in regards to the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) filed with the taxpayers’ watchdog greater than doubled within the final fiscal 12 months in comparison with pre-pandemic numbers, based on Taxpayers’ Ombudsperson Francois Boileau.

Boileau, who offered his annual report back to Parliament on Tuesday, mentioned a lot of the complaints associated to delays in acquiring COVID-19 associated advantages — which accounted for 40 per cent of the complaints to his workplace — and the standard of service offered by CRA contact centres.

“Our office received a total of 3,847 complaints, an increase of more than 70 per cent, or twice the number of pre-pandemic complaints,” he instructed reporters Tuesday.

Boileau mentioned many individuals skilled delays in validating eligibility for COVID-19 advantages, with the difficulty affecting “our most vulnerable populations” who then struggled to pay for groceries, drugs, and different payments.

“It was a huge concern for us,” he mentioned. “We’ve tackled this with the CRA, and we didn’t receive the answers that we were looking for.”

“Therefore, there’s a complete chapter in our annual report that is dedicated to this issue and to the fact that the CRA should have communicated better with Canadians,” he added, “so they would have understood from the get go what they were up against in terms of waiting for the process to be to be handled with the CRA.”

Boileau mentioned the difficulty resulted in his workplace sending greater than 1,700 pressing requests to the CRA. He mentioned this was a rise of 130 per cent in comparison with 2020-21, which was already a file 12 months for such requests.

Complaints to the Taxpayers’ Ombudsperson’s workplace jumped from 1,507 within the 2019-20 fiscal 12 months to three,533 in 2020-21, after which to three,847 final 12 months. Boileau mentioned a few of the suggestions from his report final 12 months — which may have helped handle a few of the points — have but to be carried out.

“We believe that communication is key and that keeping Canadians informed should be the top priority for the agency,” Boileau mentioned. “There remains to be a lot room for enchancment for the company to speak transparently with Canadians and ship companies in a well timed method.

“The CRA’s contact centres continue to be a large complaint driver,” he mentioned. “For years we’ve heard from Canadians about their dissatisfaction with the service.”

He mentioned extreme wait instances, receiving conflicting or inconsistent data, and calls being dropped prematurely, are the reason for frequent complaints to his workplace.

“It had a huge impact on us over the last year,” Boileau mentioned.

In his newest report, the ombudsperson is looking for the CRA to make a sequence of adjustments, together with:

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  Looking for methods by which taxpayers can obtain a safety code the identical day it’s requested, for well timed entry to their CRA Account. The CRA at the moment has a coverage of mailing out authentication types and safety codes.
• 
  Finding a method to supply in-person, same-day id verification of a taxpayer; and
• 
  Making it clear to Canadians that receiving sure advantages may enhance their revenue, and informing candidates that the rise may have an effect on their different income-based advantages.

Boileau mentioned regardless of the “record numbers” of complaints, his workplace’s companies are nonetheless unknown to many, and he’ll proceed to “inform Canadians of their rights as taxpayers.”