Confirmed that Charities Directorate gets more calls than my son Ethan gets from Gerald

Well I was wondering whether the Charities Directorate got more calls from the public than my son Ethan gets from his friend Gerald.  It appears that CRA wins by a slight margin because it gets 120,000 calls per year!  I cannot wait for Ethan to become a teenager!  Client services staff also answered 11,000 written enquiries which according to CRA now means the backlog in written enquiries has been eliminated.  For CRA to be responding to written requests more quickly is very important because some issues require a written communication from CRA.  By eliminating the backlog in responses to written communication CRA will be helping charities more efficiently and effectively comply with their legal obligations and move ahead with operational issues. 

This is another piece of information that we learn from the Charities Directorate mailing called RC296E What’s the Scoop 2010 or the French version at RC296F En exclusivité 2010 Renseignements pour les organismes de bienfaisance enregistrés

Here is the paragraph on the Client Service section:

“Client Service Section update
The Client Service Section is responsible for answering questions of a general and technical nature from, or about, registered charities. These include questions that deal with policies, guidance, procedures, and CRA services. Last year the Section responded to more than 120,000 telephone enquiries, and received over 9,000 written enquiries. Thanks to hard work by the Client Service Section staff, more than 11,000 written enquiries were processed, effectively eliminating the previous year’s backlog.

Wondering whether to call or whether it’s important to write in? For the list of requests that need to be sent in writing and require the CRA’s written approval, see the Charities and Giving Web page at http://www.cra-arc.gc.ca/chrts-gvng/chrts/prtng/rqsts/menu-eng.html.

Requests for a technical interpretation of the law or of a fact situation can also be submitted to the Charities Directorate by letter to the address listed below under “Contact information.”