Understanding the Taxpayer Bill of Rights Part 3: Commitment to Small Business

The next section of the Taxpayer Bill of Rights deals with Small Business.  We will now review these 5 items on the Taxpayer Bill of Rights.

1.The Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) is committed to administering the tax system in a way that minimizes the costs of compliance for small businesses:

As much as they say they try to minimize the costs of compliance for a small business, it is not an easy task.  CRA must balance this with their responsibility to administer and collect.  It is not advisable for a small business owner not to have an accountant who can advise them in the area of tax and reporting responsibilities.  Although CRA says they want to minimize it, it definitely seems to be heading the other direction!

2. The CRA is committed to working with all governments to streamline  service, minimize cost, and reduce the compliance burden:

The best example we can see of this is when the CRA collects taxes and gives the provinces their portion.  This is not the case in Alberta.  Although we don’t see great evidence of this, we can assume they do work with other governments to streamline things.  They do want to collect their taxes quicker, which hopefully makes it simpler for the small business!

3. The CRA is committed to providing service offerings that meet the needs of small businesses:

The CRA offers various online services for electronic filing and accessing information through an online CRA account.  As with any electronic service it can bring technical difficulties, however it can still be effective once in place and running smooth, particularly the access to your information online.

4. The CRA is committed to conducting outreach activities that help small businesses comply with the legislation we administer:

This mostly means they put on courses and put out publications for people to understand their opinions and methods.  Sometimes this can assist, but never just take it as fact!  It is always better to have your own tax advisors, accountants and lawyers that don’t work for the CRA!

5. The CRA is committed to explaining how we conduct our business with small businesses:

In my experience they sometimes do explain very well and other times they don’t.  I’ve worked with some auditors who are quite thorough and explanative, while I’ve worked with others who do their thing, won’t really answer your questions, and they just send a Reassessment.  It really depends on who you are dealing with as to what explanation you will get! 

So as you can see, the Taxpayer Bill of Rights is an important piece of legislation.  It is imperative that you know your rights, otherwise how will you know if they are trampling your rights and what to do about it.  If you believe that CRA is not staying in honor of any of these Rights, then lodge a complaint and go to the Ombudsman.  If we don’t do something to hold them accountable, who will? 

CRA also publishes a guide to explain this Taxpayer Bill of Rights from CRA’s side…( http://www.cra-arc.gc.ca/E/pub/tg/rc17/rc17-09e.pdf).   If you have any questions on the Taxpayer Bill of Rights or my blogs, please do contact me!