canada's collecton agency?

[thepyrofish]

Originally posted by derpderp
How exactly do they garnish wages? Do they force your employer to start paying your income to them?

Basically, yeah. I think they have to get a court order first.

[Cos]

Originally posted by derpderp
How exactly do they garnish wages? Do they force your employer to start paying your income to them?

They call your work and tell them to deposit an extra amount every month in the name of xyz employee. I dont know a company that would fight for you and get their ass audited as well.

[dannie]

I had an employee that had to have their wages garnished. I received a registered letter from CRA with a court order stating that I deduct x percentage of her cheques and send it to them. If I didn't do it, I was in contempt of federal law. The order then outlined sections and acts that I could be charged with as the employer.

[revelations]

I dated a girl for a while who was in the process of becoming a tax lawye. I could always tell the days when she dealt with the CRA whenever she came over.

The CRA fucks up all the time.... and most of the time she ended educating THEM about tax law.


I would take your 06 and 08 FY documents to a professional (NOT H&R block) and see if there are options you havent taken into consideration - eg. missed credits, overpayments, etc.

Yes, you will have to pay something, somehow - but it may be for a far lesser amount.

[broken_legs]

Originally posted by revelations
I dated a girl for a while who was in the process of becoming a tax lawye. I could always tell the days when she dealt with the CRA whenever she came over.

The CRA fucks up all the time.... and most of the time she ended educating THEM about tax law.


I would take your 06 and 08 FY documents to a professional (NOT H&R block) and see if there are options you havent taken into consideration - eg. missed credits, overpayments, etc.

Yes, you will have to pay something, somehow - but it may be for a far lesser amount.

This.


Government employees are overpaid, useless, and unmotivated. Their only motivation is to collect as much money from civilians as possible to fund their lavish 5% yearly pay increases and fully funded early retirement pension plans.

I have called the CRA multiple times about specific interpretions and bulletins - No one there knows anything. They basically read the interpretation out loud and come up with some off the cuff remark about what they *think* it means. You can't get an actual opinion from them unless you pay 700 dollars and wait months - just to find out what the actual tax law is.

The only people that keep track of your right not to pay are accountants and lawyers.

[rage2]

Originally posted by MaxxLee
They are just trying to make some extra Xmas money!! I say fight it to the death!! Proof below! lool

http://www.ctv.ca/CTVNews/WFive/2010...taxman_100403/

Great article, pretty much what happened with me, except I gave up after the first appeals process after they jacked it up an extra $15k. It was just better to eat the loss.

My auditor was completely unreasonable as well. In the end, it all boiled down to a couple of lost invoices for a total of 30k, which were sent to manufacturers for warranty purposes and I had neglected to make a copy. Even with proof of checks going out to the company to pay for these lost invoices, CRA refused to acknowledge it as an expense, and all of a sudden an adjustment was made and I "made" $30k more income than I declared. It was such bullshit, I went through the appeals process, and I felt completely powerless to fight with them when they came back and tacked on another $15k. It was the most insane process dealing with them.

The CRA LOVES to target small businesses where there's only 1 operation, because they know that a 1 man operation is easy pickings. The biggest reason that small business fails is because of CRA audits and tax liabilities. The time required to properly do all the paperwork and operate a business is next to impossible for a single person, and during the audit process, I spent a whopping 4 or 5 hours a day for months re-organizing all the paperwork to the requirements of my auditor, and I wasn't able to keep my business running because of it. I remember when I first was told to provide documentation, I had 3 boxes of paperwork, gave it to the auditor and she told me exactly how it needed to be organized, because it's not her job to do it.

Yea, still a little bitter about the whole situation. I was about 120k in debt after that ordeal, with a mortgage and zero home equity, and only 50% of my pay from the garnishments. Felt pretty much like rock bottom.

[mx73someday]

My favorite is how they can empty a company's bank account without going to court. We have an inactive corporation that was late on filing, so they went in and took every last cent out of the corporation's bank account. It seems counter-intuitive to expect a company to pay you money when you wipe out any capital they might use to earn more money.

When anyone other than the government wants to collect on a debt, they have to go through a claim process, and then even if they win a judgment they can't simply wipe out the debtor's assets in one shot.

[revelations]

Did you have a tax lawyer/CGA look at your books with you?

Originally posted by rage2

Great article, pretty much what happened with me, except I gave up after the first appeals process after they jacked it up an extra $15k. It was just better to eat the loss.

My auditor was completely unreasonable as well. In the end, it all boiled down to a couple of lost invoices for a total of 30k, which were sent to manufacturers for warranty purposes and I had neglected to make a copy. Even with proof of checks going out to the company to pay for these lost invoices, CRA refused to acknowledge it as an expense, and all of a sudden an adjustment was made and I "made" $30k more income than I declared. It was such bullshit, I went through the appeals process, and I felt completely powerless to fight with them when they came back and tacked on another $15k. It was the most insane process dealing with them.

The CRA LOVES to target small businesses where there's only 1 operation, because they know that a 1 man operation is easy pickings. The biggest reason that small business fails is because of CRA audits and tax liabilities. The time required to properly do all the paperwork and operate a business is next to impossible for a single person, and during the audit process, I spent a whopping 4 or 5 hours a day for months re-organizing all the paperwork to the requirements of my auditor, and I wasn't able to keep my business running because of it. I remember when I first was told to provide documentation, I had 3 boxes of paperwork, gave it to the auditor and she told me exactly how it needed to be organized, because it's not her job to do it.

Yea, still a little bitter about the whole situation. I was about 120k in debt after that ordeal, with a mortgage and zero home equity, and only 50% of my pay from the garnishments. Felt pretty much like rock bottom.

[Sugarphreak]

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[broken_legs]

Originally posted by Sugarphreak
Typical broken_legs...

I actually know a lot of people that work at CRA, they have just as many unmotivated useless workers as any other profession. They don't get paid huge amounts, a lot of them use it as a stepping stone to get into larger firms.

They get a decent pension, excellent job security and benefits; but as I was saying above the pay is not nearly as competitive as what other companies are offering... it is just a trade off. Your comment is ridiculously exaggerated.

Exaggerated? Perhaps, but the point is still valid.

Just read the last paragraph you wrote. No one in the real world gets an above average pay scale, guaranteed pension and benefits (backed by the full faith of the Canadian tax payers), and no incentive to perform aka 'Job Security'. Normal people perform and get compensated. Government workers get a job and get guaranteed everything for life through their union no matter what.

Government employee lifers and unions are a plague that the Canadian taxpayer should not have to deal with.

[Sugarphreak]

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[revelations]

The CRA tax office in Winnpeg hires people off the streets.

Apparently (like many government jobs) they have a quota to maintain a % of visible minority and new immigrants to Canada on their workforce....this means they will sometimes pass up Heidi the graduate accounting student to fill her spot with someone off the streets if need be.

It not that they are lazy its that they dont have any advanced education (beyond the basic tax laws) so a person who has spent 5 years of their life in post secondary specializing in tax law ends up telling the CRA where to stick it in most cases.

I highly recommend anyone stuck with a huge bill from the tax man to stick it to them by hiring a CGA or a tax lawyer. They will find things to pin on the CRA they dont even know exist in THEIR tax laws.

Dont get screwed by "the man" ... we have rights as citizens.

BUT.....pay your damn taxes !!!

[Sugarphreak]

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[mx73someday]

I don't think broken_legs comment was exaggerated. The public sector is a parasite class, they don't produce any wealth, only waste it and make incentives to destroy future economic growth.

I don't know how the members of the canadian government compare, but recently in the US I read that the average public sector wage surpassed the average private sector wage. Because they create jobs without any direct demand from the market, they can arbitrarily decide what their salaries ought to be. I just watched a documentary that said the public sector in the UK makes up 53% of their economy. I don't know why you would include them in economic value in the first place. Do they also add bank robberies to the economic figure?

Take a look at public "services" like education and you can see how deep the ineptitude runs. It's neither cost-effective nor is it a quality service.

I put off paying the parasites as long as I can get away with. There is no such thing as fair share and a service isn't a service if it was unrequested.

[C_Dave45]

Originally posted by Sugarphreak
I don't have much sympathy for people that get nailed by the tax man... they usually only go after the worst offenders that raise the most red flags.

They say if everybody just paid their fair share of tax, the government could cut our taxes by nearly half.

How easy it must be to lump everyone into the same category. True there are a few db's who just are lazy, try to screw the taxman,etc, right down to crooks and CEO's that use technical and grey loopholes to avoid paying tax.

However there are many people who for reasons beyond their control get into trouble, and the taxman has no leniency.

I'll go out on a limb here and give you my example...and you may call me an idiot and say I deserve it, but..well that's you're prerogative.

Back a few years at the height of the boom; I had some money set aside for end of the year taxes (over 9 months away). Watching 19 year old kids buy townhouses and flip them even before completion and walking away with over $100k in profit, I decided to try and get in on this boom.

I gambled every penny I had and invested in a another property. (Easy..I can make a good chunk, and then still pay taxes off before due date, right? hindsight is 20/20). I was on the verge of making close to a $100k and that's when it happened; day by day listings started to drop. 10k...20k...by the time the dust had settled my house was worth less than my investment. Now taxman comes calling, and on top of that work slows..economy goes south..I'm trying as hard as I can to find work, make money, etc. Rates drop. Builders go bankrupt. Customers don't pay etc, etc.

Another year goes by and by this time I now owe about $40k. The taxman does a final assessment and decides to hit me with $43,000 in penalties and interest...on top of the 40k I owe. Sure, I could have handled it differently. I could have played it safe and not try to invest/make some money etc. But we're all in this game to try and retire and live comfortably. Some gamble and win...some don't. But when you see CEO's making hundreds of thousands, millions even, and paying virtually no taxes as well as insanely wasteful gov't spending...yet all along you have Mr Taxman freezing accounts, taking away houses of the average "Joe" just trying to make ends meet...well, its certainly another "side of the story", no?

[Scuderia]

Another branch of useless government. If anyone has owned a business or explored a venture of that sort, you'd see how difficult they make it to even function properly, never mind profit. Every auditor that has dealt with people I know acts like a robot, no understanding, no reasoning, nothing. They're basically there to enforce the ridiculous bill that some guy up above wants you to pay. Like someone else said, a friend of mine had an auditor come to their office to check papers or whatever, he had 3 single documents that weren't in order, the auditor gave them back to him, told him to put document 1 where document 3 is, and then he'll look at them. Is it really that big of an offence that siezing someones house or freezing their accounts is the only choice? Or do they think alotting a 60k debt to a small business owner or regular Joe Schmuck will just fly and have no negative effect on their lives?

Just another example of a contradictory, useless, cowardly function of "government" that targets the weak citizens who won't dare put up a fight, enforced by a bunch of useless, unskilled, uneducated people who know their career and income is stable and secured as long as they keep doing what they're told.

[Sugarphreak]

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[C_Dave45]

Originally posted by Sugarphreak

I am curious about one thing, given it is clear that you are unhappy about what happened... hypothetically, what leniency would you want to get out of the situation?

Well I think that hitting someone with over 200% in "penalties and interest" seems a bit steep. I have no problem paying my owed taxes...and even the interest on that (which is almost the same as a Shylark) But really....$43,000 in penalties? No other business or creditor hits you with more than double what you owe. They have the ability to waive penalties based on "dire financial hardships"...but I've been told you pretty much have to be on your deathbed with cancer before they will grant you that. Not being able to find enough work, might not cut it. I had other family health issues that contributed as well...but my agent said its unlikely. I am in the process of applying for that. But it all takes time.

That being said, the particular agent that handles my accounts has been nothing but polite, apologetic and even giving suggestions as to what to do to help me. Unfortunately he is retiring and he even phoned me to tell me that and warned that the next agent might just demand everything in full and take my house. I'm hoping that won't be the case.

[Sugarphreak]

...

[bignerd]

They are probably asking for the entire amount as it appears they have been trying to contact you in regards to payment for a long time. They may not be so receptive to a payment plan now however like someone said, you can't get blood from a stone.

Usually they do allow for payment plans with interest, however they will ask you a ton of financial questions (rent, car payment, debt payments, wages etc...) and THEY will set the amount you can pay back per month. If you do make a payment plan try not to miss any payments as they can cancel your payment arragements right away and go back to asking for payment in full.