Compliance

Compliance with Canada's tax, trade, and border legislation and their corresponding regulations is the strategic outcome we seek in our day-to-day business operations. We aim to ensure that our operations deliver high overall levels of compliance across business lines in terms of filing, border, remittance, and reporting activities.

We aim to ensure that our operations deliver high overall levels of compliance in terms of filing, border, remittance, and reporting compliance.

We operate on the premise that most people and businesses will voluntarily comply with the law given adequate opportunity, information, and tools. However, we also recognize that the effectiveness of the programs we administer, which are vital to the national interest, relies on strong and credible enforcement of the rules where enforcement action is warranted.

To assess and manage risk, and target our resources accordingly, we use the "compliance continuum" as our operating construct. This continuum is illustrated in Exhibit D on the opposite page. At one end of this continuum, we foster voluntary compliance through the timely provision of useful information and efficient, client-centred services. At the other end, we undertake responsible enforcement action to deter wilful non-compliance and promote the fairness and integrity of our border control, benefits payment, and tax systems. The right mix of services and enforcement across the entire continuum allows us to maximize compliance while minimizing intervention and the burden on clients to fulfil their obligations.

Four of our five business lines - Customs Services, Tax Services, Benefit Programs and Other Services, and Appeals - directly involve managing the compliance continuum. The fifth, Corporate Management and Direction, concentrates on the internal capacities and the resources we need to meet our mission and assess and improve our performance. In each of these business lines, we have identified one or more outcomes that support the maintenance of high compliance levels. We have also outlined, by business line, the priorities that are being pursued to deliver on these outcomes, along with the anticipated results and success criteria that we will use to assess our performance. A top priority across all our business lines is to refine the criteria used to assess performance, bringing to them greater precision and a strong outcome focus.

Date modified:

2002-03-21