Taxpayers are spending hours on hold with the CRA — despite repeated promises of faster service

The federal government has earmarked hundreds of millions of dollars to improve customer service at the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) — but people who regularly deal with the country's tax collector say it hasn't had much of an effect, with telephone wait times sometimes clocking in at more than two hours.

The union that represents CRA employees said the federal government's decision to lay off approximately 1,800 employees in May and June has only made the situation at the agency's call centres worse.

There's been a spike in the number of irate callers lashing out at agents after experiencing long periods on hold, the union told CBC News.

As part of an effort to improve its service, the CRA has a feature on its website that tells taxpayers how long they can expect to wait to get through to an agent.

But a CBC News analysis of actual wait times found that people usually end up waiting much longer than the website's estimate. A relatively simple task — like changing a name or adjusting a person's marital status — can take up a significant part of a taxpayer's day.

The CRA website recently suggested the wait time for a lunch-hour call to the agency to discuss a personal tax matter would be approximately eight minutes.

But when CBC News placed a call to CRA during the midday period, an automated message said the estimated wait time was "more than two hours."

Unlike some other call centres run by banks, telecommunications companies and airlines, the CRA does not always offer a "call back" option. Taxpayers have to wait on hold as classical music plays on a loop.

Another recent call to the CRA produced a similar result. The estimated wait time for a weekday late-morning call was listed as 11 minutes on the website. Once on the phone, the caller was told it would be an hour and a half before they could speak to an agent.

Subsequent test calls by CBC News at different times of the day over the course of a week revealed more discrepancies between the wait times listed on the CRA's website and those callers face in reality.

Based on the CBC's results, François Boileau, Canada's taxpayers' ombudsperson — an independent officer who investigates CRA service-related complaints — said Tuesday his office will probe the agency's wait-time claims.

"It's not acceptable that you have two different answers whether you type online or whether you call. It doesn't make sense. It's something we've tried ourselves. We've noticed it's different and we'll look into it," he told CBC News.

He said unreasonable wait times are among the main sources of complaints to his office.

"It creates a whole lot of frustration, anger and resentment for Canadians and I can't blame them," Boileau said.