SSC and the CRA collaborate successfully to improve digital service delivery for tax season

 

From February 15 to May 2, 2016, Canadians were able to file their taxes online. Canadians taxpayers rely on dependable information technology infrastructure to handle their confidential tax information that they submit over the Internet.

As Canadians prepared their tax information, Shared Services Canada’s (SSC) Service Delivery Management (SDM) Branch worked hard behind the scenes, collaborating with the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA), to lead the Tax Filing Infrastructure Readiness (TFIR) 2016 program.

The TFIR program was initiated in 2008-2009 to make it possible for Canadians to complete and file their T1 returns electronically. Filing taxes online has become the popular method to submit tax information annually. Last year, CRA processed 28 million income tax returns for individuals, with 82 percent of individual returns filed electronically for the 2015 filing season.

“The 2016 tax-filing season was an enormous success and it was thanks to the excellent collaboration and support provided by SSC,” said Andrew Treusch, Commissioner of Revenue and Chief Executive Officer of the CRA. “The collaboration between CRA and SSC is a great example of service delivery excellence and our joint commitment to bringing value to Canadians.”

He also noted that in anticipation of the increased take-up in electronic services, such as Autofill My Return, CRA and SSC doubled the capacity of the infrastructure supporting CRA's tax systems. As a result, CRA was able to support a 3 percent increase in electronically filed returns and a 76 percent increase in the electronically delivered Notice of Assessments. As well, MyAccount saw a 53 percent increase and MyCRA mobile app saw a 100 percent increase.

SSC’s President, Ron Parker, and SSC’s Chief Operating Officer (COO), John A. Glowacki, acknowledged and appreciated the hard work by SSC’s employees, which allowed the CRA to be one step closer in transforming more services from a paper based/traditional mail-in approach, to digital service delivery.