Bob Hamilton

Tax Topics
1

Anyone want to start a petition to get rid of Bob Hamilton?

All the problems and inefficiency at CRA these last few years has to stop with Hamilton.

I have really had it with CRA. Most current example, I had sister of a client come to us to fix a screwup from another preparer that declared a RIFF transfer on spouses death as income. We filed the correction April 29th, now today she had her OAS/GIS reduced by $1,000. This is a very easy fix just T-slips and receipts. Target completion is stated as Oct 9th. Was on the phone with CRA for an hour and was told that since the projected completion date is within their “service standard” I should wait to after Oct 9th to call again. I pointed out to him that by then she will have at least lost another $3k in benefits and likely $4k (by the time Service Canada fixes things).

This is complete BS. The problem is a lot of employees at CRA are barely working. They are fighting to “work from home” SO THEY DON’T HAVE TO ACTUALLY WORK!!!

So get rid of Hamilton and replace him with someone who has the balls to fire all employees who refuse to get back to work.

Jim

PS:

Scroll down to the “Percentage of external service standards targets that are met”

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2

Personally…I’m all in on that. The guy is single-handedly ruining our ability to work effectively.

And…you might want to contact the Globe and Mail:

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I’m in on this as well

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Start the petition. I’ll sign.

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You have no evidence of this, of course. You’re just wildly speculating and denigrating people that you don’t know.

Also, your client’s problem stems from their previous tax preparer making a very significant error. Maybe save some of your ire for them?

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I may be in the minority here, but I’d be all in for a petition to fire Bob (or at least demand some changes from him), but not if it’s just to demand the employees work on site. Remote work isn’t the problem, so that won’t solve anything. It will only drive more workers away.

I worked at home half my career, long before the pandemic made it normal. I (and everyone I’ve done remote work with) have always been far more productive at home (proven by production monitoring) than when we were forced to work on site where time was lost constantly by stupid distractions. All the little things take longer on site, washroom breaks, getting more water, people stopping to chat “for a second” while they do those things, etc. I’m not saying it is always easy to get used to working at home and ignoring the laundry or a beautiful morning, but I was easily 50% more productive in less time at home.

Recent studies have shown that’s the case over and over again. They can set standards of production for the few who aren’t adjusting to it well (must take x # of calls or have x minutes of in-call time per day for example). The systems already exist for this type of monitoring. They have no doubt had standards like this all along…I’ve never heard of a call center that doesn’t.

For myself and most of my coworkers, the real problem was working too much. Work was always calling to me from the other room. I’ll just check emails quick or whatever thing. Work bleeds into life more than life bleeds into work.

I think the problem is more about:

-how many people they let go in the middle of a major system change that took place right before tax season started when they were already short-staffed.

-doing a major system change without actually getting experts involved. Staying with the same old guard companies instead of seeking real innovation in the process.

-how inefficient it all is to deal with at every level. A lot of what I have to call them for could be an automated process through rep-a-client…asking for extensions, etc. I shouldn’t need an actual conversation with anyone. So much more could be done online (and without that useless ai bot) than is.

-No dedicated phone line for preparers who have to call on anything. It would be easy to manage; no repID entered, they can keep demanding it until it’s entered or the caller hangs up because they don’t have one.

on and on

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What we DO know is that for some reason we are not getting service where we ought to.

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This is the answer! A petition should include some, if not all, of these points.

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I would definitely sign the petition, especially if major changes were made to bring CRA into the 21st century with the rest of us. The new account authorization process is already causing big problems with the new multiple-year clients I have since July 15. If we all ran our businesses the way CRA runs theirs, most of us would be out of work by now!

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I be happy to sign as well - Klaus Theyer - Exact Tax Service

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You can read the comments on Reddit’s forum r/CanadaPublicServants (they don’t like “outsiders” commenting there as they ban them as soon as they comment negatively on their attitudes) but the complaints about how the CPS is run are legion. Many comments are about CRA.

The vast majority of comments are about getting “accommodation” so they can take leave, work from home permanently, be able to have their {insert desire} met etc. as well as many comments about how their managers fail to treat them in a humane way. I’ll leave the reading to you, but it’s instructive.

Studies have shown that up to 1/3 of people working from home are working side gigs WHILE doing so. Whether CRA employees are doing so is unknown.

––

Personally I’ve found the newer CRA employees to be generally ill-trained, not literate in tax and in some (many?) cases unintelligble on the phone. The older ones generally remain fine, friendly, knowledgeable and helpful. Finding them is not easy though.

FWIW: Join the Efile Association of Canada (EFAC)…their July survey (usually received by now!) will close on Aug 22 and is an effective way of making comments known. For those in professional associations (ie CPA Canada), so far they have shown NO interest in doing anything and also deserve to be savaged by their members for such laxity.

Lastly, write to the (new) Minister. Hopefully they know more about tax than the Minister of Public Safety knows about his field.

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Reddit is not a reliable measure of anything due to its anonymity and selection bias, among other issues. If that’s what you think counts as evidence, you have no evidence.

I’m glad my CPA member dues aren’t going towards making a stink about this. The number of things we can do electronically has been drastically increased over the years, and I can’t even recall the last time I had to call a general line. Which I never liked doing anyway, since in my experience the front-line people on the phones have never been very knowledgeable. So that hasn’t changed.

CRA is understaffed for sure. They need a bigger budget. Investing in tax agencies tend to have an excellent rate of return since it enables better tax collection. That’s the issue that should be addressed - CRA being underfunded.

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Clearly we live in two very different worlds.

Correct - it is not “scientific evidence” (good luck finding that); it is, nonetheless, illustrative of the discontent within the PS, whether warranted or not, and whether accurate or not.

So you haven’t had to call General Inquiries….but others in your profession and associated ones DO call…on a regular basis, because there are things that simply cannot be handled online….STILL. Just read this forum to find some of those.

In 2015 when services were at least “reasonable” CRA had 40,059 employees. In 2024 that number had risen to 59,155 and has since been reduced due to the lack of necessity for continued COVID-related response to 52,499. (Source: https://www.canada.ca/en/treasury-board-secretariat/services/innovation/human-resources-statistics/population-federal-public-service-department.html) That is an increase of some 30% - even with the reduction in 2025.

This would be a matter of debate. In 2015 CRA spent some $4.1 billion (Source: https://www.canada.ca/en/revenue-agency/corporate/about-canada-revenue-agency-cra/departmental-performance-reports/canada-revenue-agency-departmental-performance-report-2015-16/canada-revenue-agency-2015-16-departmental-performance-report-12.html)

By 2024 this was more like $4.7 billion. (Source: https://www.canada.ca/en/revenue-agency/corporate/about-canada-revenue-agency-cra/departmental-performance-reports/2023-24-departmental-results-report.html#toc03-1) Note that these later reports bury operations spending with program spending.

Costs of the Ombud’s office doubled. I wonder why?

Appeals: Service standard was acknowledgement in 30 days in 2015-16. Now they just “aim” to resolve simple ones in 180 days.

I’m still waiting on a Sch89 filed through SERS…and it’s been over a year. So much for speedy electronic services.

I could go on. CRA is a mess and the answer isn’t more funding…they’ve had that, or more people…they’ve had that, too. The executive brance of CRA needs a wholesale clearout from those approving “no charges” for the Panama / Paradise / KPMG / Other papers’ issues on down IMNSHO.

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No one said anything about “scientific evidence.” But looking at reddit allows for both selection bias on from the reader’s side and self-selection bias on the part of the posters, and is therefore illustrative of nothing.

$4.1 billion in 2015 is equivalent to $5.2 billion in 2024, adjusted for inflation using the Bank of Canada’s figures. So if CRA was at $4.7 billion in 2024, that’s a 10% effective reduction in spending over that period.

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Yup. I’ve been trying to et through to CRA for over a week on a couple of issues that can’t be solved through online methods. I don’t even get put on hold.

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The best way to check if that is going to happen before you even call is to check their wait times for each department. If they say “not available” then you won’’t even get connected/put on hold.

So stupid we have to do this.

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Woo hoo! It’s Efile Association of Canada Summer Survey time…and a chance to unload on the uncooperative, inefficient, mistake-prone and clueless-in-IT mess that is our tax department and its hopelessly useless executive (“the Bob and Ted show”).

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I have done that several times and received messages that the wait times were very short. Then when i tried calling, I got “not available”. So i just p[ut off trying to solve my clients’ problems - maybe by december it will be possible to connect. But by then they will have laid off more people due to Carney’s budget demands.

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I have a gut feeling it’s going to get much worse. I wish I could add “before it gets better” but nope.

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20

One of my clients owes $600 on his corp return, and is waiing for an adjustment to be processed on his personal return. First, he needs to set up My Account, then My Business Account. He has spent hours waiting for someone to answer the phone, then spent more time proving his identity, only to be told he must have made a mistake filling in the My Account questions. He tried making a payment through his banking app, and that failed. For his personal return adjustment request, he was told they’re currently looking at 50 weeks. FIFTY WEEKS! Things were better than this when I started out in 1973!

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