c27393dc
XPost: can.general, can.politics, ott.general
His office has no power "to direct the CRA" to do anything. However, their
involvement
makes the CRA sit up and take notice when a client contacts the Taxpayer
Ombudsman and you
can cut through a whole lot of red tape and being shunted or abused by the CRA
agents.
The very fact that there are "thousands of cases" being referred to the
Ombudsman shows
just how out-of-control the CRA is.
"Alan Baggett" wrote in message
news:caaae9e4-88f7-4a00-9951-8cea8c02436c@y12g2000vbg.googlegroups.com...
Taxpayer Ombudsman can’t fix everything at CRA :CRA SOTW
Paul Dube and his staff win some, lose some while taking on thousands
of cases
By Don Cayo, Vancouver SunFebruary 19, 2010
It has been five years since I wrote my first column in what has
become an long-running, intermittent series on taxpayer complaints
about the Canada Revenue Agency.
It's two years this Sunday since lawyer Paul Dube was appointed by the
federal government as Canada's first taxpayers' ombudsman with a
mandate to do much the same thing, to expose and rectify those
complaints.
I had some success with my first case: CRA backed down from a ruling
that would have re-interpreted old rules and imposed a six-figure
reassessment on three Vancouver fruit sellers. I've been as lucky with
several cases since.
Nonetheless, I'm pleased to report that Dube and his staff are batting
quite a lot better than me. They've taken on a few thousand cases,
compared with my few dozen. They've righted a gratifying number of
wrongs, although he doesn't have a precise count.
Still, I'm left with the uncomfortable feeling the tools Dube has been
given are no surer or sharper than mine. In the end, he and I can both
only scold, me in print and he more privately, mandarin-to-mandarin,
so to speak. Beyond that, all either of us can do is hope CRA will do
the right thing.
Ultimately, despite what Dube describes as a "formidable" power to
assume guilt and impose crippling penalties, there's no affordable,
effective check on when CRA acts capriciously or decides to dig in. He
and
I are in the same boat in that we can say CRA really should fix some
mess or other, but we can't say they must.
And Dube has no power to order a financial break for people who've
been ill-treated.
This last point is important.
Dube told me when he was in the city this month that communication is
the most common cause of problems he encounters. I sort of agree, only
I call it a failure to communicate, when taxpayers can't reach the
people who are making life-altering decisions about their files, when
CRA won't answer valid questions for months or years, or when answers
change every time a new guy is assigned to the file.
The recurring theme in the stories I hear is how fast CRA's demands
for money ratchet up while the bureaucracy's collective thumbs are
twiddling.
If Dube were to look into many of the cases that come across my desk
and find that policies were ignored or misapplied, what good would it
do? Because Dube doesn't have the authority to adjust the amount said
to be owing.
Nor does he have the power to do anything about policies that are
wrong-headed, although he's sometimes successful in pleading for a
break when an across-the-board policy yields a patently unfair result
as a result of unique circumstances.
The upshot, as was noted last fall by the headline on my 39th column
on the CRA, is that the main option open to aggrieved taxpayers is to
"pay up and shut up or pay up and beg."
And, as if this level of uncertainty isn't bad enough, it gets worse.
A survey commissioned by Dube found that 42 per cent of Canadians fear
repercussions if they complain about CRA.
So I'm pleased that he got the job and that he's able to look into
several hundred cases a month, and resolve many of them.
And I wish him well in his quest to become better-known to Canadians
and increase this volume to whatever it needs to be.
Dube's phone number is 1-866-586-3839. His office accepts only
complaints about CRA service, although, he says, that is interpreted
quite broadly.
dcayo@vancouversun.com
See Don Cayo's blog on tax iss ues and one on globalization s at
vancouversun.com/blogs
© Copyright (c) The Vancouver Sun
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Miss a Tax Tale Miss a lot!
Visit the CRA SOTW Library at http://canada.revenue.agency.angelfire.com
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Alan Baggett – Tax Collector’s Bible
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* Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)
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