From: canadarevenueagency1@yahoo.com   
      
   CRA apologizes, fixes mix-up after wrongly declaring woman dead :CRA SOTW    
      
   'It took you 2 seconds to kill me but it takes you what, months to un-kill   
   me?' says Alyanna Lapuz   
      
   By Katie Nicholson, Vera-Lynn Kubinec,     
      
   The Canada Revenue Agency has brought a Winnipeg woman back from the dead, so   
   to speak, after the taxman accidentally declared her deceased in December.   
      
   "It feels good. I'm excited. I want to get my student loan and everything and   
   just get on with my life," said Alyanna Lapuz, 21, who had tried for weeks to   
   have the agency address the error.   
      
   Lapuz had received a letter from the CRA on Jan. 7 addressed to the "Estate of   
   the Late Alyanna Lapuz."   
      
   "I was just like, 'What is this?'" Lapuz said. She called CRA and spoke to an   
   agent: "She said I was deceased."   
      
   Lapuz believes premature reports of her death may have occurred when she   
   called the agency in December to switch her GST cheques to direct deposit.     
      
   "From direct deposit I became deceased," Lapuz said. "I didn't know you could   
   just click a button and make somebody dead."   
      
   Lapuz called the agency back repeatedly over the next few weeks, only to learn   
   she was still considered dead.      
      
   What was initially an amusing mix-up became a stressful problem requiring   
   multiple calls and visits to the agency to fix the mistake.   
      
   "I broke into tears because I was just so frustrated," she said. "I didn't   
   know what to do any more. No one was helping."   
      
   It didn't take long for her newly deceased status to interfere with her life.   
   Lapuz is slated to start a dental hygienist program in Toronto in April, but   
   her student loan application was put on hold because her social insurance   
   number was invalid. The    
   reason? Lapuz was also flagged in that system as deceased.   
      
   "If I don't have my student loan, I don't know how I'm paying for school,"   
   Lapuz said.   
      
   Lapuz is angry the agency had not been able to tell her how it happened or why   
   it was taking so long to fix. She's also worried the situation may affect her   
   taxes and other government documentation.   
      
   "If you can click a button and make me dead, you can reverse it as fast as you   
   did it," Lapuz said. "It took you two seconds to kill me, but it takes you   
   what, months to un-kill me?"   
      
   Late Thursday afternoon, Lapuz told CBC News a CRA manager in Calgary phoned   
   her to apologize and say everything has been fixed.   
      
   She added that the manager informed her that two employees who made errors in   
   her case will be spoken to.   
      
   "She says that it was an employee error, so that was nice, and she's saying   
   that everything's OK now," Lapuz said.   
      
   Lapuz said she also learned from Service Canada that her social insurance   
   number has had its "deceased" flag removed.   
      
   Thousands wrongly declared dead   
   This isn't the first time an error like this has happened. Between 2007 and   
   2013, 5,489 Canadians have been erroneously entered as deceased in CRA's   
   system.   
      
   It has happened so often that in 2014 the Office of the Taxpayers' Ombudsman   
   released a report on the problem and made eight recommendations to fix it.   
      
   Among the recommendations were improvements to the clarity of CRA's forms for   
   reporting death and following up with people who report deaths to the agency   
   "to substantiate the date of death."   
      
   Lapuz wrote to the CRA to tell the agency she was not dead, but the agency was   
   slow to act.   
      
   The CRA initially declined an interview and noted it could not speak about   
   individual cases.   
      
   In a statement to CBC News, the agency said the rate of these errors has   
   dropped since 2013.   
      
   "Despite safeguards to ensure the accuracy of our files, occasionally   
   information we receive is incorrect or human error can occur during the   
   processing of a taxpayer's information," the statement said.   
      
   "When CRA becomes aware of an error, we do inform our partners. The CRA   
   responds quickly to take corrective measures when an error is reported. In   
   fact, the CRA aims to rectify the situation within 24 hours."   
      
   However, it's been three weeks since Lapuz first reported the error to the   
   CRA, and until Thursday afternoon she had yet to be assured the problem would   
   be fixed.   
      
   Bob Campbell, the national president of the Union of Taxation Employees, which   
   represents 25,000 CRA employees across the country, said errors in any job are   
   likely to happen. But he points to the 6,000 jobs cut from CRA over the past   
   four years.   
      
   "You cannot have less people doing a lot more work," said Ottawa-based   
   Campbell. "You're only allowed so much time on each file or on each item   
   you're dealing with."   
      
   Campbell sees a connection between Lapuz's problem and CRA staffing. "It all   
   comes down to the amount of people that are available to do the job," he said.   
      
   Whatever the reason, Lapuz just wants to be back among the living.   
      
   "I feel like as days go by my student loans are not going to work, I'm worried   
   my credit cards are not going to work. I'm running out of time," she said.   
   "This should have been fixed the first time I called."   
      
   The taxpayers' ombudsman declined to comment for this story.   
      
   The CRA said it has accepted and acted on all eight recommendations from the   
   ombudsman's report.   
      
      
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