A rchive Date
[ 10-09-2000 ]
Category
[ International Relations ]
sub-Categoy
[ Canada ]
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[Big fish off hook again
By GARY DUNFORD - Toronto Sun
September 8, 2000
LITTLE FISH: Which do you suspect Canada's taxman pursues with the greatest gusto: The company that owes $1 million in back taxes, the executive whose stock swaps have him $50,000 behind taxes from prior years, or the citizen who by some quirk of fate owes an extra $2,000 from 1999? Here's a hint: The littlest fish don't have lawyers, accountants or clout. They have divorces, job disruptions and diseases.
As one neatly put it: "My bill - the one the tax collector is so aggressive about - wouldn't run Jean Chretien's car for a day." He's right: This citizen owes chump change. He's paying in installments. There's no question of fraud or dispute here: Just citizens who owe additional federal income tax and pay it. But a flurry of recent reader yelps suggests the heat is on.
"You are entitled to courteous and considerate treatment in all of your dealings with us," promises the Declaration of Taxpayer Rights printed on every document of the Canada Customs and Revenue Agency.
Would that include one taxpayer diagnosed with cancer last year, who had just come through unexpected surgery? The cancer scare played havoc with the family's finances. He's paying the small back tax bill owing, but not fast enough for the taxman. After aggressive calls and mailings, he asked: "Why do you keep calling? I pay my tax installment each month. And if anything should happen to me - you'd get it from my estate."
"How do I know that?" was the tax rep's sarcastic response. Excuse me? Maybe you have to experience a real brush with death not to joke about it.
"You are entitled to be presumed honest unless there is evidence to the contrary," promises the taxman's public Taxpayer Rights declaration. "You are entitled to a fair hearing and courteous treatment ... one of our obligations is to help you exercise your rights."
Would that include the woman whose hubby abruptly walked out, after using two years to carefully move the family's tax liabilities into her hands, and convert the family's cash and property assets into his? She's dutifully paying off an unexpected tax hit of under $3,000, yet taking aggressive collection calls from Canada's tax reps.
"I'm not avoiding my taxes, I'm paying them," she says she told the latest collection guy to call about her account. "I owe you money and I'm working to pay it. Why not call the people who don't pay their taxes?"
"Because we know where you are," he joked. And after she recapped suddenly covering surprise taxes without her family's assets: "Your life is your problem." Fair? Courteous? Helpful? Again, this is treatment of Canadians paying off what the taxman says they owe. Is this a helpful way - not to consider humane - to get people back on their feet from curves life threw at them? Back into the taxes-on-time mainstream?
Then there is the form, insulting and outrageous.
"It's a family budget analysis that asks for more information than God on high," says one installment-payer. "They want to know everything that comes in for a month, then everything that you own." The ominous implication: The taxman might grab some object or lump sum than wait for a client to pay it in installments.
Do Canada Revenue 's collectors come this hard after taxes owed by corporations or execs? Or do they know the corporation can simply acquire a company with a $1-million tax loss to cancel the debt? Or the exec will simply dump enough losing stock to make his $50,000 tax debt a wash? In either case, the taxman knows there'll be court costs.
Only working Joes can be squeezed like oranges, at phone numbers and addresses they've lived at for years. They're working for wages. The amount owed may be piddling, but Joe's got no options, no cozy paper losses and tax escapes. The collector on the phone is right, if insulting: If you owe a piddling $756 from last year, "we know where you are."
Canada Revenue also knows it's people without disposable incomes who can be harassed at home, citizens whose circumstance makes a $756 additional tax hit a big deal. Where's the politician who'll make collection "patience" a Taxpayer Right for little fish? The same "courtesy and consideration" offered to those who owe millions? And often, not that innocently.
© 2000 Gary Dunford Reach Dunf at (416) 947-2246 or by e-mail at pagesix@aol.com
 World Fact Book (CIA)]
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