Time’s Up: CRA’s 100 Day Mandate for Improvement

Geoff Currier and Evelyn Jacks

After years of frustration on the part of tax professionals and taxpayers alike, the Finance Minister ordered the Canada Revenue Agency to clean up its act in 100 days. Specifically, the improvement plan was to run from September 2 through December 11. Finance Minister and Minister of National Revenue, Francoise-Phillippe Champagne instructed CRA to fix “unacceptable wait times and service delays.” Time’s up this week and CRA has released an update on progress. What gets measured, gets done. Let’s see what CRA’s metrics show. 

The Calls are Unmanageable. To begin with, CRA says it received 30 million calls in the 2024-25 fiscal year. It admits that it lacks the capacity to handle that kind of volume. However, it has had some successes:

• Accessing CRA Account Problems. From September 9 to November 28, 2025, 66,821 Canadians were assisted via a web-based priority call back service for issues related to both accessing their CRA account or Business Registration. More than 5000 calls per week were answered in this way
• Accessing the Disability Tax Credit (DTC). From September 15 to November 28, 2025, there were 3,274 callback requests related to DTC enquiries. An experiment was launched to answer callbacks from the CRA within 2 business days.
• As of November 19, 2025, improvements were made to the content of the “Register for a CRA account” webpage. The success rate for users completing their registration tasks increased from 44 percent to 93 percent. That’s impressive!
• During the period of November 24 to November 28, 2025, there were 7,400 people who used CRA Online Chat in My Account. Less impressive, but a good start.
• As of October 6, 2025, CRA implemented a system enhancement for T1 Adjustments to automatically process an additional 115,000 requests annually. However, this is still falling far short of need. One advisor we spoke to last week said their client has a $15,000 refund owing on an adjustment request. They were told not to expect it til May 2026 – well past the T1 tax filing deadline for 2025! Holding on to this refund for this long should not be acceptable at all. 

Increased Staffing: The Agency has increased its staffing levels by extending contracts of some 850 employees. It has increased the size of its overall staff by about 3,000 since 2024. The overall size of the staff at CRA had previously fallen from some 59,000 to about 52,000. CRA says it now answers 77% of calls which come into its centres, up from 37% in early September.

It also reports “calls answered and agent levels will decrease due to reallocating some agents to support key workloads. These resources will help reduce processing delays in areas of the CRA that are causing calls from Canadians.” 

Addressing Accuracy Issues. As tax professionals you know all too well that if the person answering is not properly trained or is unqualified to answer your question, it matters little that your call was answered in a timely manner. It is a common complaint that callers often receive conflicting or incorrect information. Too often we hear of tax professionals wasting hours on hold because the agents who take the phone call are unable to provide answers to questions. Here’s CRA’s response to the issue:

• The CRA received more than 30 million calls during the 2024-25 fiscal year, around 80 percent of which were related to specific accounts. We are working to address the accuracy issues raised by the Auditor General for questions of a general nature, which make up 20 percent of our calls.

More Digital Options: As an alternative to speaking to someone in a call centre, CRA is improving its digital services. One example is Canada.ca/Taxes, where information regarding GST/HST credits can be found as well as information on the Canada Child Benefit. The Agency also says it has improved the online information for registering a business account as well as offering an online chat service.

In addition, taxpayers who owe more than $1,000 can now make payment arrangements digitally, rather than waiting to speak to a representative. There are also online options for dealing with files such as TFSA’s or Disability Tax Credits. Registrations for a new business number or CRA program accounts must now be done online. Your clients may be unaware of some of these changes so be sure to keep them informed. 

Is This Satisfaction? This takes us to claims which might be challenged by both you and your clients. For example, CRA states “The Quality Monitoring Program …findings showing we have results of over 90 percent for professional and efficient service, as well as for accurate information provided.” This information was taken from a survey of 100,000 calls.

The Bottom Line: While CRA is providing weekly updates on call responses, the real test will come from the feedback you, as tax professionals, will provide. We’ll be looking forward to the feedback we receive from you and your clients to see if CRA is improving at the rate it claims through this 100-day period and the days beyond.

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