Regina, Saskatchewan, April 11, 2007... Minister of National Revenue Carol Skelton today released the final report of the Canada Revenue Agency's (CRA) Action Task Force on Small Business Issues, titled Helping Small Businesses by Reducing the Compliance Burden.
“The measures proposed by the CRA's Action Task Force on Small Business Issues provide concrete solutions that will significantly contribute to reducing the compliance burden imposed on small businesses,” said Minister Skelton. “I fully endorse these measures, and I am personally committed to implementing them.” Canada has approximately 3.4 million businesses, all of which could benefit from these changes.
The task force provides actions to reduce the compliance burden on small business in three key areas:
Simplifying, improving and, where appropriate, reducing the frequency of small business interactions with the CRA;
Improving how and when the CRA communicates with business; and
Measuring the burden and reporting on burden reduction efforts.
Certified General Accountants Association of Canada welcomes the Minister of National Revenue's initiative to reduce the regulatory burden on small business, and we are heartened the Canada Revenue Agency is working towards improving the small business environment. We believe the recommendations in this report represent a first, yet important, step in achieving this improvement,” said Ms. Judy Collyer.
“The plans and initiatives contained in the Action Task Force Report represent a serious commitment on the part of the CRA to reduce the compliance and paperwork burden for small and medium-sized businesses. As the initiatives are implemented, business owners will experience real cost savings measured in terms of both time and money. These savings will multiply as provincial tax administration systems are harmonized with those of the CRA,” said Mr. Bruce Ball, representing the Joint Committee on Taxation of The Canadian Bar Association and The Canadian Institute of Chartered Accountants.
"The Canadian Federation of Independent Business (CFIB) and the Small and Medium Enterprise (SME) sector we represent, should be very encouraged by several initiatives identified in the Task Force report. We are especially excited by the CRA's commitment to annually review and report on ways to reduce paper burden and improve compliance burden for SMEs. I believe the Task Force's work is a model that should be followed by other Federal Agencies and Departments," said Mr. Garth Whyte, Executive Vice-President for CFIB and a member of the Action Task Force.
The Action Task Force on Small Business Issues was established in August 2006, at the request of the Minister of National Revenue, to identify CRA's tax administration practices that impose the greatest tax-related compliance burden on small business, develop solutions to reduce the burden, and introduce a systemic and institutionalized approach to burden reduction across the CRA.
The report is available on the CRA website at www.cra.gc.ca.
A list of the members of the CRA's Action Task Force on Small Business Issues is attached.
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