I was chatting with a friend last week who asked me, “Why do you dislike the

Canada Revenue Agency

so much?”

I was a bit shocked since I really don’t. I quite admire and respect the important job the CRA has to do — administering Canada’s complex tax laws is very difficult — its people and its leadership. I’ve tried to make that clear in all my writings, but also in my day-to-day interactions with them.

Over the years, however, I have not been shy to point out where the CRA needs to improve and that’s likely the cause of my friend’s misunderstanding.

The CRA has had massive budget increases in recent years, so one would logically think Canadians have received improved service. Nope. Instead, we have a bloated CRA with a call centre that is virtually unapproachable, we have new CRA agents who are very poorly trained and many agents often work from home with obvious unprofessional distractions.

Some may not have any issues with CRA employees working from home, but I do. Working from home is not a matter of the modern workplace or getting with the times. Instead, working with colleagues in a face-to-face environment is

simply the best way

for people to learn, collaborate on difficult issues, ensure proper training/supervision and provide the right environment for overall good outcomes.

It is now routine for taxpayer audits to be horribly conducted with resulting proposed reassessments that are laughable. Unfortunately, this puts taxpayers in a position where they are forced to object to the reassessments. Earlier this month, we found out

taxpayer objections have spiked

. This puts a further strain on the CRA and, of course, taxpayer resources.

But back to the call centres. On Sept. 2, Finance Minister François Champagne

announced

on his X account that he was asking the CRA to come up with a 100-day plan to improve its call centre performance and other services. At the time, I was refreshed by the blunt assessment that the CRA needed to improve, but I was obviously skeptical that the 100-day plan would be nothing more than a political exercise.

The CRA created a 100-day plan

website

where it tracked the progress that it was apparently making and there were some improvements, but it was obvious the agency was more concerned about treating the symptoms rather than tackling the long-standing and systemic issues that led to the symptoms.

As a result, I predicted that when the 100th day arrived — Dec. 11 — there would be a lot of self-congratulations by the CRA and Champagne for their “successful treatment of the symptoms.” But I was hopeful that wouldn’t be the case and that a longer-term plan would be presented to tackle the root causes of poor taxpayer service.

Fast forward to late October and the auditor general released a scathing

report

on the CRA’s call centre performance and other standards. We now know why Champagne called for a 100-day plan in the first place: he and the CRA had obviously been provided an advance copy of the report and were trying to get ahead of the damage. Yep, politics was indeed driving the bus as suspected.

From that point forward, I was confident my prediction of self-congratulatory slaps on the back would be the result on Dec. 11.

But on the evening of Dec. 10, I was nevertheless tingling with excitement. I finally went to bed, but it brought back memories of my childhood on Christmas Eve when I was so excited since Santa would be coming soon. That’s how I felt when I put my head on the pillow. Santa was hopefully bringing a much-improved CRA call centre and services.

The next morning, I

jumped out of bed

and grabbed my iPhone, an old rotary phone and my iPad. My excitement was over the top. I tried calling the CRA with my iPhone to see if I noticed any improvements and whether I could get through easier than before. No real change was found. I then picked up my old rotary phone, but had no success there either. My excitement was starting to diminish.

I then went to my iPad and saw a CRA

press release

about the results of the 100-day plan staring me in the face. After reading it, I was significantly disappointed. I don’t think I was ever disappointed during my childhood on Christmas morning when Santa arrived, even if the presents were modest. I was grateful and always thankful.

The CRA press release, however, was exactly as I had predicted: self-congratulatory pats on the back for all the “progress” it had made in treating the symptoms, with only a passing acknowledgment that the root causes will be looked at.

Given this, the CRA’s 100-day plan became yet another case study in bureaucratic and political self-congratulation. Canadians deserve better. Improved taxpayer service isn’t about putting out short-term fixes or building shiny dashboards to track superficial and underwhelming targets, such as answering only 70 per cent of taxpayer calls.

It’s about fixing the structural rot: poorly trained agents, inaccessible systems, broken audit functions and a call centre model that’s essentially unapproachable.

So, how did I answer my friend who asked why I disliked the CRA so much? I said that, if anything, I likely care too much. I want the CRA to be better because the stakes are high, the gaps are widening and Canadian taxpayers — the lifeblood of this country — deserve far more respect than they’re getting.

Santa delivers quietly, efficiently and constantly improves his processes and systems with his elves without self-congratulatory press releases. Champagne and the CRA could learn a thing or two.

  • Tax reform requires more from the Liberals than just a minuscule tax rate reduction
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Kim Moody, FCPA, FCA, TEP, is the founder of Moodys Tax/Moodys Private Client, a former chair of the Canadian Tax Foundation, former chair of the Society of Estate Practitioners (Canada) and has held many other leadership positions in the Canadian tax community. He can be reached at kgcm@kimgcmoody.com and his LinkedIn profile is https://www.linkedin.com/in/kimgcmoody.

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