Look, I've said it here before but I'll say it again: aside from any of what we call "under-the-table" transactions, the government of Canada, like the government of the US, knows about every dollar that passes through our hands. Our governments are businesses and THAT is what they make their business. They really WANT to know about the other money because they believe that too is any of their business... which it isn't. They have slowly but surely made inroads into all commerce in the country to cut our "under-the-table" transactions and make people who engage in them feel more and more criminal, but to this day it remains none of their fucking business if I want to sell you my car. However, in most cases they've managed to stick their noses into our private business. We now need 1. a bill of sale, 2. an application for transfer that must be included in the vehicle registration, 3. a vehicle permit, 4. proof of ID (not just ID). To be safe you also might want to include in the transaction an "as-is" report; a safety recent inspection; vehicle history; maintenance records; warranty documentation; and a record of every time you drove it and where you went. WHO DOES THIS??? Are we supposed to live our lives like the anally retentive busybodies at the government expect us to? No, we are REQUIRED to live our lives this way!
As you might have guessed it's my recent tax issues that have inspired this entry. To begin with, read this article and it will give you a bit of an idea of how put upon we already are every year at tax time. They KNOW what we make and don't need us to do our taxes. Folks it's unnecessary, it's unnecessary, it's unnecessary! Return-free filing is long overdue in our countries and you can blather on about how some people's taxes are more complicated than others but the biggest reason the government has made an art out of making taxes complicated is so that we will do them. Can you think of any more diabolical subservience hoop jumping to maintain citizen control? I can't. Our taxes every year are just penance to our masters. We still call them "government" but just think about that. I won't rehash how broken our electoral process is, you all know most of it, so you know we don't legitimately elect our leaders. Why we even still use terms of respect they don't deserve to refer to them like "governers" is probably just habit. Governors are meant to be elected. Trudeau's approval rating is about 33%. Governors are meant to be respected and elected through our respect for them. I don't know how closely approval and respect track but I can't imagine a third of Canadians actually respect that dumbass not to mention the hundreds and hundreds of other people in government who look like they govern us or the holders of the majority of Canadian funds who REALLY govern us.
You may ask the obvious question: why??? but I've posted about that too. H&R Block alone is worth over 7 billion. They spend a lot of that money lobbying our government to NOT use return-free filing that is successful and well loved in all those wonderlands we frequently read about who are not (yet) totally beholden to their currency and the people who control the largest amounts of it. Germany, Japan and the UK are mentioned as places where return-free taxation has proven to be successful. Intuit and TurboTax are also powerful lobbyists according to the article.
The writer of the article, Marty Smith, offers a solution: just don't file for several years. He says the IRS will file for you. The CRA (Canada revenue agency) is evidently less prompt. In my recent stint overseas I went 9 years without filing and the CRA did not do the job for me. I went to H&R Block because knowing the depths of its depravity, I can't spend too much time on my yearly taxation supplication to the masters of money because adhering to the tenets of this national brainwashing revolts me. "If you don't file your taxes, you are not a good Canadian." Get thee behind me you impudent flunkey! Let me give you an illustration of the indifferent public servants who handle our taxes in Canada and the methodology they employ.
I filed sometime in late March or early April. Because the taxes for 9 separate years included benefits like sales tax, child and carbon tax rebates the money started getting deposited into my account a little at a time. I was out of the country so you might think I don't deserve any of these and you'd be right - for the child rebates. People who are temporarily overseas (like me because Canada has no good jobs for me) still have expenses they pay in Canada like bank fees, storage fees, property fees etc. I was paying money so the GST/HST which are attached to everything we buy in Canada (almost) were attached. There is a minimum rebate and I qualified for it. As for the carbon rebate, I emitted ZERO carbon in Canada so I should get that too. Anyway, H&R Block told me, to my surprise, that I qualify for that money for all nine years. I thought there was a 5 year limit but the person who did my taxes told me that was no longer true.
I didn't receive the full amount calculated by my tax return preparer when suddenly on May 23 I received an audit letter stating that they needed some info about my residence since returning to Canada and proof of that info. They also said in the letter that they would be "withholding retroactive payments" until I did so. There was a number with that letter and I called stating that I could not provide driver's license, utility bill, or any of the other proof of my residence asked for. I also asked if they wanted my residence info for the time I was away from Canada. To my relief the lady said no. Just send the info of where I've lived since Feb '23 when I came back. So I did and I texted it to her. She said (untruthfully) that she could not receive the info thru text. I tried to send it on the website but like all Canadian gov't websites it was shit and purposely so. I couldn't send it and explained the loop I got stuck in when I tried. She said, "Then fax it to me." So I faxed the info. Done, right?
Oh no! I had just begun. The deadline was July 9th for submission of the info. On July 5 I received a letter stating that since I had not submitted the requested info I would have my account adjusted. This could require repayment of money that had already been sent to me. So I started sending emails to every online site I could find that might help. The first was the CRA website, which, as I mentioned before, is shit. They ignored my explanation that I had indeed sent the info requested and that the remainder of what my H&R Block return was calculated to be (2-3000 bucks) had still not been deposited into my account. There was another place - the office of the minister of revenue or some shyte like that to which people were prompted to send other complaints if the CRA was ghosting them. So I sent my explanation there. ANOTHER month went by so I wrote to the office of the ombudsman. I received some FISHY correspondence from a lady there named Ms. Johanne Poisson. She wouldn't give her last name at first, then wouldn't answer calls and dodged messages I left. Finally she sent a message through some user-unfriendly Canada Post private internet communication system. Eventually she too said that if I'd contacted the office of the minister of revenue there was nothing she could do to help.
Today I had a two-hour phone call with some people at Revenue Canada named Crista, Amy, and some Indian name I did not hear respectively. I gave the usual information to confirm I was who I said I was to all three separately. Crista had the same dox I have. All the letters are on my file. So she saw my confusion but said she'd have to refer me to someone in "benefits." That was the better part of an hour. I got Amy in benefits who also had all the documents on her screen and who ALSO could not figure out what the hell had happened. She brought up what I had feared from the beginning, that I would be told that I don't get benefits like GST/HST etc. while overseas. But the letter had said, "retroactive payments." What would they be if there were no benefits? And she actually looked through and saw that I had been given some GST/HST and CCR (carbon rebate) for some of the years between 2013 and 2023. So there MUST have been payments available to me. In the end she told me that maybe the confusion arose because I had not told Revenue Canada where I was during all that time.
Let's recap. I left the country and Immigration knew. That's the government. I only told them because I had to. Since returning home I had told H&R Block and all of the various agencies where I had been. I didn't give them addresses for the overseas places but who cares? I also didn't feel like they needed me to give them my addresses in Canada because THEY ALREADY KNEW THOSE TOO. They were on my T4's. That's NOT immigration, that's CRA. Those are the papers you include in your taxes that have your pay, name and the place your worked on them. But all three people I talked to today and all the people I've been communicating with are trying to pretend like it's a big thing to find out where I'm living in Canada. If they can't wait till tax time, they can ask immigration. That's the government too.
Anyway, the Indian gal went through the usual ID crap then started telling me that I need to go to a website and fill out this and that form to let CRA know where I'm living. She also said that it was MY responsibility to do that when I was overseas. She said that I was not eligible for the benefits I received while overseas and... the news I had expected... I would probably have to pay back some of the money I had already received.
So then she continues saying here's how we want you to fill out more forms giving us information that is none of our business and that will cost you money you've already been given...
I told her that maybe they ought to look into making this THEIR responsibility, not mine, and that maybe I don't really want to help them steal money back from me to add to the money that they were already withholding from me to extort information. Or something to that effect. Then I hung up since the phone call was almost into the third hour.
To recap, again, I am constantly going overseas to work. I have never before provided Revenue Canada with information on where I'm living or any of that. Didn't know I had to. Don't think I SHOULD have to. Particularly since THEY KNOW. Just as well as they know all the money I'm making. Even when I'm outside of Canada. They have pension arrangements with the countries where I've taught. I pay taxes in the countries where I've taught. Return-free taxes btw. They don't need any more information from me. I probably can't give them any information about me that they don't already know anyway. Maybe the whole point of asking is to make me think that's not the case.
So that's where things stand. I still don't know why H&R Block told me I was entitled to those benefits while I was overseas if I actually wasn't. I also don't know why the CRA actually PAID me some of those benefits if I wasn't entitled to them. Why the ghosting? Why the misinformation? Why tell me I was overdue before I was overdue? Why tell me they hadn't received information that they HAD and later admitted they HAD received? Why the colossal incompetence? And finally, why would I want to be governed by liars, cheaters, and idiots like these? Why would ANYbody?
I'm back home in Canada to get this settled and to live with my Mom while we figure out what she will do, where she will live, and how we will make that all happen now that my stepdad Art has passed on. He was a great guy and he was a wonderful husband to my Mom. So it's gotta be tough for her to figure out what she's going to do without him. But we'll get 'er done.
The distraction of this tax clusterfuck is particularly unwelcome at this time. However, I am in the last week of my penultimate course in the M.Ed. Who knows? Maybe I'll be able to find decent employment in my own country finally and avoid tax shenanigans such as the above. But probably not. I've got some prospects already but most of them are overseas.
Further updates as event warrant.
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