Two things:
I just spoke with a staff member of the Canadian Revenue Agency about an odd notice I got in the mail saying “OMGyouoweusmoneyandwetoldyoubeforesopayitupnow!”, with no indication of what tax year to which it was related, or why it had come out of nowhere, or even of what it was a reminder (because 2004 was the first and only year I’ve ever had to pay tax, and what I owed wasn’t this amount — besides, it was paid). She was incredibly helpful, whereas the notice was not. Turns out it’s a GST thing from three years ago; looks like they’ve decided I’m not eligible for the refund and have to give it back, which is wonky since I never get a GST refund because our total family income is always too high. I’ll be calling the GST folks later for more info. The good news? She quoted me a number now due that’s lower than the number on the “pay-us-now” notice, not that it was a horrendous number to begin with. It was just more irritating to be told that I’m late paying something I was never told to pay and couldn’t immediately verify against my records because there was no reference number or year given.
Then I spoke with a staff member with the provincial Regie des rentes about our child assistance allowance, clarifying a name issue and a retroactive payment thing. He too was incredibly helpful.
It is mildly sad that I am surprised to have received clear and helpful service from two civil servants today.
In completely unrelated news we have a new-to-us mattress and box spring (thank you, t!), and it’s firm and comfy and I slept incredibly well last night. Of course, the sleeping well may also have had something to do with the amount of sushi eaten at the all-you-can-eat sushi place and the amount of sake imbibed on the moms’-night-out yesterday evening. And after I work on a couple of hours of consultant stuff this morning, then get an hour or so of my own writing work done (proposals, Swan Sister, that sort of thing), HRH and I are taking one of the movie gift certificates we got as a Christmas gift and going out to see Cars this afternoon, because it’s Liam’s day with his grandma!
Between you and Karine, I’m beginning to wonder if the provincial and federal tax agencies don’t have too much time on their hands once tax season is over. They seem to be off looking for any possible problem they can find — possibly in order to justify spending the unused portions of their budget?
I’m wondering if it’s an in-house cleaning initiated by the new government. Come to think of it, our provincial reassessments three/four years after the fact happened hard on the heels of the Liberals replacing the PQ, too.
I too got a ‘This is how much you owe us’ notice without any clear indication of what year it pertained to. Since it said “This is the penalty we assessed you for late payment,” it was fairly obvious to me that it was my 2004 return (i.e. the one I was actually late on) , btu if I had submitted two years of late returns, I would have had a darned hard time figuring out which one they were talking about.
I’ve always ahd great service on the phone with the federal governemnt. And the provincial come to think about it. In fact I heartedly recommend phoning the federal government rather than trying to navigate their website whenever you need government type information.
The provincial tax office is chaos though. (Well, helpful on the phone but chaos in paperwork. I think they’ve lost three of my QST payments (it might be more; I no longer pay by cheque: I always pay at the teller now so that I can get a stamp to prove that I’ve paid.) and they misapplied money I sent to them for tax installments resulting in a wonderful notice alst year that said I owed thousands of dollars! Gulp. A quick phone call (and it was quick; and in english too) cleared everything up quite easily.