With no surprize to anyone, the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) has reported a much higher increase of calls from taxpayers compared to a year ago, resulting in longer wait times to access services. This would be a result from the Covid-19 pandemic that made tax reporting more challenging with more boxes on the form to fill out. People were commonly calling also to inquire about Covid-19 benefits.
Agents were working from home and the call centres experienced longer wait times. The CRA said the increase in calls were almost three times as many as the early months of 2020.
There were some pre-emptive measures put in placed anticipating this increase in demand for services, including extended hours of service, automated call-back options and increase in hire for more call agents. From October 2020 and March 2021, approximately 2,000 new call agents were hired which nearly doubled the amount of staff from the previous year.
Despite the pleas for the CRA to delay the tax filing deadline for 2021, there were no deadlines given. Combined with the cybersecurity breach that prompted the agency to lock access to approximately 800,000 online accounts, more calls were being made to accountants and tax professionals.