48,774 Staff. 17% Right Answers. The CRA Isn't Understaffed — It's Underperforming

The CRA has 48,774 employees. When the Auditor General called with basic tax questions, they got the answer right 17% of the time. This week the CRA announced layoffs, and the usual crowd is panicking about service. Our take: the cut isn't too deep — it's barely a scratch. About 260 people out of nearly 49,000 is half of 1%. Per person, Canada's tax agency has about 50% more staff than Australia's, more than five times the IRS, and more than Britain's HMRC. Since 2015 the CRA grew by 48%. Service didn't get 48% better. What you can do: Never trust a phone answer. Get it in writing. If the CRA gave you wrong information, document it. It can support a relief request. Object on time. Tell your MP: productivity targets, published processing times, and real digital service. Not another hiring spree. Work in tax, or just fed up with the CRA? Tell us where you see the waste: https://crauncovered.com Sources: Auditor General of Canada, Report on CRA Contact Centres, Oct. 2025; CBC News, Oct. 21, 2025, on the Auditor General's report; Winnipeg Sun (quoting the Auditor General's report); BNN Bloomberg, Oct. 29, 2026; Yahoo News Canada, Oct. 28, 2026; CRA Quarterly Financial Report, Q3 2025–26 (personnel spending: $5,393,403K); per-employee figure is a CRA Uncovered calculation; Fraser Institute, Aug. 29, 2024; HMRC; Australian Taxation Office; Fortune; Statistics Canada; ONS; ABS; U.S. Census Bureau; CRA briefing to the Public Accounts Committee, Feb. 2026. Some images are AI-generated illustrations and are labelled on screen. Parliament photo: Saffron Blaze, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons. This video is commentary and general information only. It is not professional tax or legal advice.