On November 3, 2009, the Auditor General of Canada released her Fall 2009 report. In this report, the Auditor General found that the Department of Finance and the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) have contributed to the complexity of Canada’s tax regime by failing to make required amendments to tax legislation in a timely manner.
The Auditor General found that no technical amendments have been made to the Income Tax Act since 2001, despite a backlog of at least 400 amendments. The Auditor General also found that the Department of Finance and the CRA have little or no formal procedures related to identifying and responding to technical issues in tax legislation. The Auditor General found that the CRA is no longer meeting its timeliness standards in responding to requests for technical interpretations and advance tax rulings. Finally, the Auditor General found that the CRA has not updated some of its technical interpretations to reflect changes in tax law.