We’ve seen it all… my daily fight with the canada revenue agency
by tony buliga
copyright 2011 tony buliga
smashwords edition
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DEDICATION
I would like to dedicate this, my first book, to my nephew Nathan. It took me 45 years to realize what a hero really is. A hero is someone who does the unimaginable when confronted with adversity without fanfare or special notoriety simple because it must be done. Sports stars and celebrities may have fame and be admired, but they are not heroes. Nathan is.
PREFACE
Over the years, events unfold and things build up to a point where you want to do something about it – you know you have to do something about it. Ideas come and go and come again, and you reflect on the desire you’ve had to write about them. This is why you are reading what you are reading right now.
I started on this path back in University a long time ago and over the years I saw a lot and learned even more. I followed that path to a point where I met my wife Liz. Things took off from there and have reached a point where this book was finally possible. And it wouldn’t have been possible without her love and devotion by my side. She was there through the long hours and her assistance in the gathering of information helped flesh out the book immensely.
My foremost struggle was to present the subject matter in a way which could be well received by the reader. I did not want to make it a boring, erudite, scholarly read; nor did I want a stodgy, factual recitation. I attempted to encompass the truth within the governmental framework as it exists; but realized there was not only a need for humour, but ample room for it. I hope you appreciate my style.
1 Prologue
You’ve all heard about writers encountering difficulty trying to overcome the dreaded “writer’s block”, that scary, nightmare-provoking beast that most writers hope to never face. I say ‘most’, not ‘all’ though. Because when one is writing about the Canada Revenue Agency, one hopes to encounter writer’s block somewhere. One hopes to encounter a massive writer’s block of gargantuan proportions, a block too large for Hercules, or even Atlas to carry.
Why? Well if you are asking that question right now, you have either never had the misfortune of dealing with the taxing-arm of the federal government in Canada, or aren’t from Canada. It’s that simple.
For those reading from outside Canada, the Canada Revenue Agency is like a sickly, weak apparition of the Internal Revenue Service, that scary, threatening, oft-called illegal entity to the south of CRA in the United States of America. For those of us inside Canada, the Canada Revenue Agency is the one that is ruining your life. You know that hand that’s always stealing money from your pocket, wallet, or purse? CRA! Well it gets better. Or........ maybe worse, actually.
Now I’d like to take a pragmatic approach with respect to our government – and the Canada Revenue Agency particularly – but don’t get the wrong impression here. I am not painting everyone with the same brush; just as in all walks of life, there are some very nice people who work for the CRA, not all but some. They are people like you and me and have not been targeted with ridicule in this book. I have dealt with many such people. This book however, goes far beyond them. Sit back and enjoy.
I may take some necessary precautions as I do not want anything to be misconstrued throughout this book, especially where the ‘special subject matter’ is concerned. Or maybe I want certain statements to retain some ambiguity or uncertainty about them so I don’t offend the ‘special subject matter’ too badly? I mean just coming out and calling the Canada Revenue Agency and the Canadian chartered banks ‘Bonnie & Clyde’ on the first page could be considered a little too forthright. And it doesn’t build much suspense.
In any event, I believe that for the reader to better understand some of the topical matter I think I should start with a rather diverse yet advanced economic concept. Before you put the book down over your understandable aversion to economics – and miss out on one of the best reads of your life – let me quickly fill you in.
I will be briefly introducing the ‘Laffer Curve’, which in economic academia is a theoretical relationship between the government’s tax revenue at all possible rates of taxation. I should have just said ‘blah blah blah’ because no one but an economics student or professor cares about this concept and for good reason too. Economics is largely a bogus field of study entirely based on assumptions which have no real place in the world.
I can almost hear readers saying, “Then why is it taught in schools?” or maybe “Why does the government rely on the statistics so often?” The reason is simple. Economists are funded by the Bilderbergers and their kind and economic theories are espoused according to how they see fit in working them into their New World Order.
So why have I dragged you into a seemingly endless eternity of nonsensical crap like economics this early? I did it simply to introduce the concept of the Laffer curve. You have to realize that anybody who writes or reads about the Canada Revenue Agency might lose some sanity. Therefore, when things get too ridiculous, I will simply refer to it as a “Laffer”. After all, CRA is the real Laffer. Not to mention, if I happen to step on some toes, I want to be able to say innocently that “I was misconstrued”. If I did intend to step on some toes though, I would hope to be wearing some type of lead shoe whilst so doing. Then again, given the actions of some Canada Revenue Agency auditors in Quebec in recent years, ‘lead shoes’ or ‘cement shoes’ seem to fit in pretty well with their modus operandi (grin grin wink wink nudge nudge) if you know what I mean. And if you got the Monty Python reference there, good for you; I’m pretty sure I will neither offend nor be sued by them.
On top of it all, how could anyone possibly write a book about the Canada Revenue Agency without some real laffers? They are a joke. But if there is such a book out there, it was probably written with either CRA influence, or Trilateral Commission or Bilderberg backing.
Mine is not.
CRA publishes their “corporate mission statement(s)” as if they were a for-profit business. Lucky for them they are not or else they would have been out-of-business for a while now. Here is their “Mission Statement” (from their website): To administer tax, benefits, and related programs, and to ensure compliance on behalf of governments across Canada, thereby contributing to the ongoing economic and social well-being of Canadians. Their “Vision for our future” reads as: The CRA is the model for trusted tax and benefit administration, providing unparalleled service and value to its clients, and offering its employees outstanding career opportunities. Their “Promise / Commitment” states: Contributing to the well-being of Canadians and the efficiency of government by delivering world-class tax and benefit administration that is responsive, effective, and trusted. And finally, their “values” (guiding principles) are listed as: integrity, professionalism, respect, and co-operation.
I laugh at these. No need to ask why; you will know by the end of the book, that much is certain.
Robin Hood and Batman treated ordinary, law-abiding citizens exactly that way. Then again, they weren’t the government. Ah! Maybe that explains it perfectly. Maybe that’s why the CRA thinks we are morons and spineless.
2 The Antagonist
Okay, this might be the perfect time to make sure everyone is on the same page. There is nothing worse than having to continually stop for the slowest one in the group to catch up. And if you recall, that is why the Battlestar Galactica kept getting caught by the Cylons – while leading a rag-tag fugitive fleet of 220 vehicles they had to proceed at the speed of the slowest vessel. Since we’re going to be together for this entire ride, it may benefit us to make sure that we are all on the same page with regard to our titular topic.
We are talking about the CRA, the good ol’ Canada Revenue Agency. They have been gouging – I mean they have been around forever it seems, so we all must know them. Oh wait, a revelation has just overcome me. Some of you may be confused as to what the Canada Revenue Agency is or by the term CRA and that would defeat the hope of us all being on the same page. Some of you may be under the impression that Canada’s crooked tax-arm is actually called CCRA – for Canada Customs and Revenue Agency -- and are confused by me calling it simply CRA.
‘Crooked’ can simply mean bent at the elbow, so the current MNR can relax and unclench right about now. ‘MNR’ could stand for anything too, not necessarily the Minister of National Revenue, who it seems changes so often that there must be a revolving door on his/her/it’s office. (I may utilize certain gender-specific terms from time to time throughout this book, so if you have a problem with that, I don’t care – all this politically-correct bullCRAp is ruining society – did you notice how even bullcrap is spelled with ‘CRA’).
Okay, those of you who do know the Canadian taxman as CRA may now be getting confused with my CCRA reference. You may even be confusing CCRA with CCCP, the old Soviet Union and that is completely understandable. I did not intend to confuse or obfuscate these entities with disjointed acronyms, but, isn’t this exactly what the government hopes, that its ‘peon taxpayers’ are perpetually confused. That is in their best interest after all. But I didn’t intend to confuse you too much by referring to the oppressive former Soviet Union or even the Nazis, but every time someone mentions one of those groups, for some reason I usually think of a former Canadian Prime Minister (perhaps Jean Chretien, perhaps not?) and I don’t know why. Nudge nudge.
And now that we have established that some of you are familiar with CRA and some with CCRA, we are still in jeopardy of losing another large segment of our group. There are a lot of taxpayers out there – a few of the older ones -- who are wondering what the heck everyone else is talking about. They must be wondering why we are referring to ‘RevCan’ as CRA, or CCRA and also where in the world the CCCP or Soviet Union fits in. The Nazis, they know about.
So let’s start the ball rolling with a clean slate. Canada’s federal tax arm (crooked at the elbow or not) used to be called “Revenue Canada”. They must have thought they were so cool and powerful that they called themselves ‘RevCan’ for short. They needed a nickname. Maybe it was their street name. In any case, at one point – probably in a fit of ‘Cabinet shuffling’ and ministerial upheaval, they changed their official name to the “Canada Customs and Revenue Agency”. This quickly became CCRA for short.
Now if anybody gets the initiative and wants to get the dirt on just how much money that little name change cost Canadian taxpayers, be my guest. The astronomical cost of letterhead changes, envelopes, and rubber stamps in 470,000 bazillion different offices, not to mention all the federal cabinet meetings to discuss the name change (possibly complete with private jets, possibly catered dinners and possibly highly-paid prostitutes) must have been enormous. And no doubt a tally that we will never know about. But in reality, have we ever known the true cost of any farce our government has perpetrated upon us – the helicopter deal; the submarines; that stupid Yes/No referendum. Probably not.
So, now we have RevCan switching to CCRA, all in our best interest no doubt. But in just a few very short years, the unbelievable happened. The Canada Customs and Revenue Agency changed its name. Again! Maybe they just tried to foil D.O.A.s song, “Je Declare”. They are good Canadian guys and one of my favourite bands. Check them out. Luckily for our sakes, CCRA avoided things like CCCP, BFS, BFG or anything that started with ‘SS’ as those are all fairly nasty. But some crackerjack, sharp-as-a-tack Member of Parliament must have earned his $100,000+ salary one day by suggesting to simply ‘drop one of the Cs’. Thus the CRA was born. And we’ve been getting slapped ever since.
Now, all that letterhead, those envelopes and rubber stamps simply had to have the first C dropped off, right? Okay, we’re not that naive, but the point is it must have cost us quite a bundle. Again! It’s easy to waste money when it’s not yours that you’re spending. Technically though, they didn’t even drop the 1st C; they dropped the 2nd C, the ‘Customs’ one. They turned the country’s customs duties (no pun intended, really) over to another crackerjack group who continually seem to only inquire if the vehicle you’re in has any alcohol or tobacco in it. Now that’s a real laffer. Screw the border eh; can we collect any tax revenue on alcohol and tobacco?
CRA, CCRA, RevCan, whatever they want to go by..... they sure have changed their name a lot. It’s a good thing they hooked up with Clyde on that whole RRSP fiasco. Or are they Clyde? Then that would make the chartered banks Bonnie. Okay, that problem is considered solved here and now; thus, B will stand for banks and C will stand for CRA. Bonnie & Clyde does have a nice ring to it. The Canada Revenue Agency and the big banks do have a very convenient relationship; I’ll definitely talk about the RSP fiasco in a later section (look for it).
So we still have to sift through all the misinformation. Or was it disinformation? CRA, CCRA, and RevCan are all the same monster, much like Jekyll & Hyde were. And just as criminals try to change their names, the Canada Revenue Agency sure seems to have a lot of aliases. With their “known associates” file consisting of the big Canadian banks, I wonder just how long their rap sheet actually is. Maybe you’ll have a better idea of that answer by the time you get to the end of this book. Or perhaps some of you already know how long the rap sheet is from experience.
Most Canadians undoubtedly have been ‘inconvenienced’ by the Canada Revenue Agency at one time or another, but all of us may not know who CRA is. There are probably more Canadians who know the IRS down south, from watching television while growing up. Well, up here in Canada we have to deal with the CRA. It’s funny they chose an acronym that is also found in CRAp, CRAckhead, witchCRAft, CRAss, and CRAzy – all equally undesirable things. I’m not knocking the Canada Revenue Agency; I’m just making a point. (Wink wink)
In reality though, the simple fact that our government introduced a ‘tax on income’ in 1917 to help finance the war effort and I am writing this sentence 93 years after the war ended pretty much sums it up. Let’s go off-topic (slightly) just for a quick discussion about the integrity of our government.
Point one: they introduced a temporary ‘tax on income’ 94 years ago for the purpose of “financing the war effort”.
Point two: the ruling government in 1989 introduced another big tax scam to us called the Goods and Services Tax. The Goods and Services Tax was supposed to replace a ‘hidden manufacturing tax’ and thereby “benefit us”. The revenue brought in by this GST was needed to help pay down the mounting national debt at the time which was around 80-90 billion dollars. In the first year of the program the GST brought in to the federal coffers around $17-18 Billion. Would you like to guess how much of that total went toward paying down Canada’s national debt? Here’s a hint....if you guess anything over zero dollars, then you would be wrong.
Point three: The GST was hotly contested and largely unwanted by Canadian taxpayers. The Liberal Party was very outspoken against the Conservatives’ plan also. The Liberal Party actually hoped they had enacted it themselves; but, they openly attacked it. Why would they do that? Oh yeah, they did that because they were the opposition party (aka LOSERS of the previous election) and in Canada the opposition party ALWAYS denounces, criticizes, ridicules, and votes against everything the party in power ever does as if it was protocol. Sometimes I wish that just once when our government enacts a helpful law that we like and/or want and/or need, that all the members of parliament say it is good too, quit the schoolyard posturing and vote for it. Isn’t it about time that the world saw Canadian politicians all working together like we profess we need to do in this world. If our members of parliament are fixated on ridiculing anything and everything that a member of another party says or does, then I’d consider letting it be a free-for-all like they have in parts of Asia. If an elected member of the government in some of those countries doesn’t like what another member said, he either punches the other guy in the face or clubs him over the head with the sole of his hard shoe. Now THAT is getting your point across. Here in Canada, they bang the desk, give a “hear hear” now and then and chuckle at a fellow party member’s joke, which is usually not funny anyway or not heard over the boorish, raucous cat-calls of those $100,000+ per year gaggle of mostly lawyers. Growing up, I remember banging on the desk, shouting out loud, and telling jokes usually got you stuck inside at recess. Maybe the jokers in our House of Commons were from the “inside at recess” group. They probably still pee their pants too – well at least the 90 year-olds in the Senate do.
Anyway, let me get back to further discussion of point three. The Liberals then publicly denounced this new “Gee-Hess-Tee” and VOWED that “if elected” (the first two words of some of the biggest lies in history) they would get rid of the unwanted Tory GST. Point three (b): one of the Liberal members running for election that year, Sheila Copps, even PROMISED to resign if the Liberals were voted in as the government and failed to remove the GST within the first year. Well if any of you are not history buffs allow me to explain that this Copps woman did indeed get elected in her riding (another FAT $100,000 per year salary plus generous expense account for her), but there’s more to this story. One year to the day into the term, with the GST still in force – and was never in jeopardy of ever being removed – she was asked if she would honour her promise to resign. Caught by her own words (some would say lie, I didn’t...) she answered that she was not stepping down. Politicians are many things, (really, they are many things) but stupid enough to give up a fat salary for little work, I do not think so. She in fact further exacerbated the situation by stating that she couldn’t, or shouldn’t, (I forget which), be held liable for something she said in the heat of an election campaign! No fooling! She actually said this and got away with it.
Point four: We are stupid. Not me in particular, and maybe not the person reading this right now, but Canadians are stupid for ever believing the GST was going to benefit us in some fashion; by believing the revenue was ever going to used to pay down our national debt; by believing the Liberals were really going to scrap it; and by not politically crucifying a lying Member of Parliament. How stupid were we? Well after the aforementioned Liberal debacle which lasted from 1993-1997, do you remember what we did about it? We re-elected the same lying Liberals with a majority government again in 1997 for another 4-5 year term of abuse. Could it get worse? Could we be any more stupid? Well, we did it again with a third straight majority government the next time. That, my friends is and was as stupid as anyone can get. Honestly though, the real stupidity was not realizing (as a country) that no rational thinking government would voluntarily take $20 Billion in revenue out of their budget.
3 If It Looks Like a Government and Talks Like a Government, Then It Pisses You Off
Does anybody still harbour doubts as to why the 1917 ‘tax on income’ was never going away once the war was over? No, I did not think so. After all, we really could not expect the government to honour words spoken in the heat of screwing us, now could we? The evidence is even clearer when you look to see that it was the Conservatives who screwed us with that “temporary” tax in 1917 and then the Liberals the next term who kept it alive and growing when they came to power in 1921. In case any of you picked up on the fact that one party was not supposed to agree with another, they didn’t. But when the Liberals took over in 1921, they were now the government and they were doing what they wanted. And we’ve been feeling that PITA ever since and I don’t mean the bread. If you don’t think so, check again because we (Canadian taxpayers) are even --still in 2011-- paying legal bills caused by a man named Chretien and also paying $500,000 for a ‘temporary assistant’ to open mail for a former Governor-General who left the post in 2005!
Let’s assume for the time being that the CRA is indeed an imperialistic, highwayman-esque, brow-beating, unwanted virus with no redeeming qualities whatsoever. We’ll wait for a minute or two until that last rag-tag vessel can make this stretch. Now if we accept the fact that the federal government does need a department which correctly, accurately, and fairly – ahem, sarcasm intended – collects taxes, can we honestly go on to say that it does so smoothly, with accuracy and objectivity? Not in this lifetime or this universe. In fact, to further clarify my point, if indeed the CRA was found to run smoothly, accurately, and objectively, then I would search hard for a “bearded Spock” in whatever mirror universe I must have happened to have landed in because I know it wouldn’t be this one.
Is the Canada Revenue Agency really efficient? Or does it have a squeaky wheel or two.... or twenty? This would be a good time for a leisurely stroll through that which is commonplace when dealing with the Canada Revenue Agency. All of the following occurrences have happened either to me or close associates over the past few years. Although they are complaints about practices within the CRA, some considered minor or trivial even, the fact remains that this is supposed to be the organization that is in charge of the fair and uniform treatment of all taxpayers. The system should be fair, the rules should be fair, and the application of those rules should be, dare I say it again, FAIR. Unfortunately, I have not experienced the ‘fair’ or the ‘uniform’ application of law with any sort of regularity whatsoever. That is shameful.
Nevertheless, let us now explore some of the more mundane goings-on with and within the CRA. If you’re extremely lucky, you will never have to ever deal with them, short of filing your taxes, paying your bills, or cashing your cheques. However some of us have to consistently deal with them on behalf of taxpayers like you. Yes, you’re welcome. Now, the next few items on the agenda are in no particular order regarding severity, alphabetic or chronologic order, or anything else that should be fashioned of note. It is simply a compilation of random instances, some funny, some not so much.
First on this list of gripes involves having to call these jerkoffs on the phone. There is a national toll-free number to call for “General Enquiries”. It is on their website; it also appears on each and every piece of correspondence they send to everyone. It is 1.800.959.8281. If you’ve never had the pleasure, try it sometime. Heck, call it and tell them you love this book (that is, before Big Brother tries to pull it --- not the TELEVISION show, so calm down CBS, you stole the name from George Orwell first anyway!).
In any case, let’s get back to that toll-free number. When you call, there is a chance (just about 100% of the time) that all available lines will be busy and you’ll have to wait in a queue. Ah! That’s the first gripe. Here’s how their (our) system works. Once your call has been accepted you get a voice prompting you in both official languages of our country (unfortunately neither of which may be understood by 40% of our population, but that’s another subject for discussion) that they strive to answer within 2 minutes and you will be in sequence and even get enchanting music sometimes too. But one of the glitches in our great CRA phone system has a type of ‘ring-down’ feature. As the CRA professes, when there are too many calls on hold and more coming in, while you’re on hold, your call can pass down to another centre ostensibly with more manpower to answer. However, you will wait and wait. And wait. There is no priority sequence to the calls being answered. Hey CRA, you cannot get any fairer than the basic principle of “first come, first served”. One of the things I have catalogued over the years is that while on hold, with the mistaken assumption that my call was indeed in a fair, first-come first-served queue, I would then dial again from a second line and have that call answered quite some time before the first line was ever picked up! Any half-assed phone system in any two-bit rinky-dink outfit can place calls in a priority sequence. Then again I wouldn’t call CRA half-assed at all. They aren’t even close to that good.
What did I receive for passing along helpful feedback to the CRA on that issue? Well I got a bunch of bullshit answers ranging from “your call rings down to another centre when we are busy” to “I am not aware how the system works” to “well it’s not real good, is it?”. Not real good? It stinks! (Just like the mid-term grades for Delta House!) Oh, that dean guy was just as good as the cop in Killer Klowns too.
The second issue is that when you do finally get someone on the phone there is a fifty-fifty chance that you will not even be able to understand them. Then again I guess the language barrier is no different than when you call any other business’s customer service line, although they do have a priority sequence. But the big difference with this kind of behaviour happening at the Canada Revenue Agency is that WE PAY the salaries of those answering calls. And I’d like to get my money’s worth even if you don’t.
Next on this list of problems trying to contact Clyde by telephone is the personality and demeanour of the person who finally answers. Granted they may encounter some hostility once in a while, but that is to be expected. If you work at the Canada Revenue Agency and do not like to have an angry or upset customer (taxpayer) on the phone or do not like potentially rude conversation, then your problem seems fairly simple to solve – DON’T TAKE A POSITION WHERE THE JOB DESCRIPTION STATES YOU WILL BE ANSWERING THE PHONE FOR THE GOVERNMENT’S INCOME TAX DEPARTMENT. I have a friend that always likes to add ‘dumbass’ at the end of certain statements; it would have fit in nicely there.
This also brings me to the next item on our agenda. When you call in about anything specifically related to your account (or on behalf of someone you represent), they ask a number of screening questions. That’s not the problem however; the questions serve to ensure they are communicating with the right person – not for privacy issues though, don’t get fooled, it is to prevent them from potentially being sued. They couldn’t give a rat’s ass about any of us otherwise. The screening questions verify WHO you are among other things. And like those conspiracy fellows will attest, it allows the government to keep that many more tabs on us. The call is entered into your file. Oh, I can almost feel the cringing at that thought.