2003/04 – 2005/06 SERVICE PLAN Ministry of Provincial Revenue

Planning Context

The factors which present challenges, opportunities and risks for the Ministry of Provincial Revenue over the next three years include:

External Factors

Weak economic recoveries have typically resulted in an increase in non-payment of taxes and debt. There continues to be uncertainty internationally, and therefore domestically as to the strength of the economic recovery.

The BC economy grew 1.9 per cent in 2002, faster than the 0.7 per cent expected at the time of last year’s budget, according to BC’s independent economic forecast council. The Council now expects growth in BC’s economy to pick up to 2.7 per cent in 2003. Further information on the BC outlook may be found in the Budget and Three Year Fiscal Plan released with the budget.

Managing the increasing demand by customers for increasingly high quality, responsive and enhanced services will continue to challenge the Ministry.

Developments in enterprise information management provide opportunities to extract and use data in new ways to improve revenue collection, decision-making, reporting and processing.

The Canada Custom and Revenue Agency collects taxes on behalf of the Province under the Income Tax Act, with some resulting potential for their policy and delivery decisions to impact on the Ministry’s business.

Internal Factors

Consolidation (new ministry/new programs), customer expectations and limited resources will influence development of alternative service delivery models. Policy changes concerning program delivery within client ministries can affect our mandate to deliver our goals and objectives within a set budget.

Direction to implement a government-wide revenue management environment and to share information will create both challenges and opportunities. As the revenue management scope of the Ministry expands so does our new role as agency or partner with other ministries, thereby increasing the need to examine and resolve issues of accountability.

Workforce adjustment and shared services initiatives may create challenges around program delivery and the way we deliver services to our customers in a timely and cost-effective manner.

The proposed Community Charter could have a significant, but as yet undetermined, impact on tax programs.