We've Seen It All... My Daily Fight with the Canada Revenue Agency

By Tony Buliga

As a tax professional, I have had to deal with the Canada Revenue Agency on a daily basis for years. The CRA is Canada's taxman and doesn't exactly work the way you would expect.

Realizing that subject matter like the Government or income tax in general is usually seen as dry and boring, I wrote this book in a much different light. Filled with humour (throughout a serious subject) and laced with cultural references, We've Seen It All... is one book you do not want to skip and will not put down.

Know what your government is doing to you and why they are getting away with it.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Tony Buliga
• Release date: Oct 15, 2011
• ISBN: 9781465820242

Book preview

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,