Reporting fees for service online questionnaire – What we learned ― Summary
On this page:
- Background information
- Awareness and preparedness
- Reporting vehicle
- Invoicing
- Reporting threshold
- Demographics
- Takeaways and next steps
Background information
From May 22 to July 22, 2024, the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) invited Canadian businesses and organizations of all sizes to share feedback on the current reporting fees for service (RFS) requirement through an online questionnaire on Canada.ca. Individuals responsible for managing the accounts of their business or organization, such as those working in accounts payable, accounts receivable, or payroll were encouraged to complete the questionnaire.
The intent of the questionnaire was to help the CRA better understand businesses and organizations’ awareness of, and preparedness to comply with, the RFS requirement. The questions were designed to help identify:
- ways to simplify the RFS requirement and streamline processes to minimize the potential reporting burden
- a better understanding of the challenges to compliance
- the information needed to support businesses and organizations to meet the RFS requirement
The CRA received a total of 1,460 completed questionnaires. Participation was voluntary and the questionnaire did not collect any information that could be linked to the identification of respondents.
The following summarized what the CRA has learned from the online questionnaire. The results do not necessarily reflect the views of the broader Canadian population. There is no margin of error as the sampling is non-probabilistic.
Awareness and preparedness
Overall, there was a generally high level of awareness (67%) of the RFS requirement among respondents, with small and micro sized businesses and organizations reporting less awareness than medium and large ones.
Preparedness to comply differed widely between economic sectors. Roughly half (53%) of all respondents indicated that they felt they are fully or at least somewhat prepared to comply based on the current information available, while 40% of respondents said they felt their business or organization is not at all prepared to comply. The remaining 7% are unsure.
Reporting vehicle
About half (53%) of respondents do not think the T4A slip is the appropriate reporting vehicle for RFS, while 32% agree with using the T4A slip and 15% are unsure. Support levels for the use of the T4A slip vary significantly across economic sectors, with some showing approximately 70% agreement and others showing less than 10%.
Many respondents reported concerns around the need to:
- issue too many T4A slip
- hire additional staff to file T4A slip
- purchase or upgrade software to prepare a T4A slip
Invoicing
The questionnaire results indicate that there is no clear trend regarding whether businesses and organizations receive invoices that separate goods and services. Specifically, 43% of respondents said goods are separated while 41% said they are not. This lack of consistency is observed across different business sizes and economic sectors.
Reporting threshold
Over three quarters of respondents (77%) believe the current reporting threshold of $500 for RFS is not appropriate. This perspective is common across most economic sectors. Most respondents felt that raising the reporting threshold would reduce the administrative burden, with 34% indicating that a threshold between $10,000 and $30,000 would be more suitable.
Demographics
Just under two thirds (65%) of respondents were from micro and small businesses or organizations (micro being those with 1-5 employees and small being 6-99 employees). Close to one-third (31%) were from medium and large businesses or organizations (medium having between 100-499 employees and large having 500 or more employees). A small percentage (3%) selected “other” when asked about the size of their business or organization.
The top three economic sectors represented were professional, scientific, and technical services (21%), finance and insurance (18%), and transportation and warehousing (17%).
A large majority of respondents were from Ontario (40%), followed by British Columbia (21%), Alberta (15%), and Quebec (12%).
Most respondents’ (85%) businesses or organizations operate mainly in English compared to 9% operating mainly in French.
Takeaways and next steps
The information gathered from the questionnaire responses suggest that:
- significant efforts are needed to provide support and educational materials to help economic sectors better understand and comply with the RFS requirement
- options to minimize the potential compliance cost and administrative burden associated with the RFS requirement must be carefully considered
- clear guidance is necessary on the RFS requirement, including which services need to be reported and the obligations of both payers and payees
The feedback received from this questionnaire, as well as other consultation and engagement activities (e.g. the RFS external stakeholder working group and past public opinion research), will help the CRA identify ways to clarify the RFS requirement, streamline current processes, and proactively support Canadian businesses and organizations in understanding and meeting this tax obligation.
For more details on the findings of the questionnaire, see the Reporting fees for service online questionnaire - What we learned report.