the canada revenue agency extended its call centre hours after the taxpayers’ ombudsperson found that people in different time zones across canada were having trouble reaching agents.
in a news release, the office of the taxpayers’ ombudsperson said tuesday that the cra’s contact centre hours for individual and business tax inquiries had been extended.
previously, contact centres were open monday to friday from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. and saturday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., local time.
the hours are now all based on eastern time, with lines open monday to friday from 6:30 a.m. to 11 p.m. and saturday from 7:30 a.m. to 8 p.m.
the problem with the previous system, the office of the taxpayers’ ombudsperson said, was that the cra’s telephone system was “preventing callers from reaching an agent if the contact centre was not open in the time zone associated with the caller’s phone number.
“for example, if someone had moved from vancouver, (b.c.), to st. john’s, (n.l.), but had kept their vancouver phone number, they would not have been able to reach a cra contact centre if they called from st. john’s at 10:30 a.m.,” the release said. “the cra’s telephone system would have told the caller that the contact centre was not open because it would be 6:00 a.m. in vancouver.”
the office, which
made a service improvement request to the cra in march,
said the issue was especially impacting canadians living in the north despite having “the potential to affect a large segment of the population.”