The Canada Revenue Agency’s tax information call centres were given a ‘D’ grade in a scathing report from the Canadian Federation of Independent Businesses.
Long wait times and inaccurate information being provided were cited as the reasons for the low grade. The report also points out that the CRA performed worse on both measures than it did in the CFIB’s previous report in 2016.
The report is based on 200 test calls that the CFIB made in June of 2019. 49% of the calls were not completed due to blocked calls, disconnects, and excessively long wait times. This suggests the CRA’s service quality has been declining as that percentage was 30% on the CFIB’s 2016 test and 20% on the 2012 test.
When the test callers actually managed to get through to an agent, they received incorrect or incomplete information 41% of the time. This is up from 31% in 2016 and 24% in 2012.
“Unfortunately, it seems like the number of Canadians that can rely on information from the CRA is dropping,” said CFIB president and CEO Dan Kelly. “They are not known for being forgiving to taxpayers, but they routinely provide incomplete information to us.”
Spokesperson Etienne Biram says the CRA is working to remedy the situation with improvements such as providing wait time estimates and implementing a callback feature that allows callers to maintain their position in the queue without having to stay on hold. He also says the website will soon have a chatbot feature that helps people find information.