Re: {S"toonHenHouse} Census Fun

Steven Kurylo wrote:
> Do something about it! Write your MP.
>
> http://www.vanlug.bc.ca/census/

Yes, and also

http://canada.gc.ca/directories/direct_e.html

but I have to deal with things as I have time :)

> Errr, you want the government (with its included overhead) to track
> all of my sources of income? Instead of each person spending X hours
> and the gov't spending Y hours, you want them to spend 2X + Y? I'm
> assuming twice as efficient as them, since I'm really motivated to get
> it done fast.

The government currently tracks all my sources of income. Everyone who
sends me a T4 (T4A, T4RSP, etc), the government knows about. My RRSPs?
  Same thing. Bank information? They have a copy. They have enough
information for me to get back, at the least, the money that was
overdeducted.

But that's not the only problem. They could easily provide citizens
with an Excel spreadsheet (which Gnumeric would probably open just fine)
that can calculate my taxes for me, instead of requiring pen and paper.

A person should be there to supervise data entry, but there is
absolutely no reason for the actual calculations to be handled by a
fumbly sausage fingers like myself.

OR the government! Did you know that they STILL enter my tuition and
RRSP stuff by hand? In fact, in the 2003 tax year, they transposed a 5
and a 6 on a line when entering this data into their computers from the
PAPER COPIES.

God help you if the numbers the gov't has on file don't match with the
numbers you have on file! Since it's all paper, there are no CRCs, no
prompts to enter the value twice, and no easy way for ME to cross check
their numbers online short of requesting all my taxes for the past 4
years, then taking those (PAPER !!!@$!~$) copies to my tax person, who
also has to dig out paper (PAPER!!!!) copies of my taxes since they do
not have VERSION ELECTRONIC TAX FORMS on their computer (NO VERSION
CONTROL!??!?! OMFG!!#!$!$). I expect my current troubles (caused by
fat-fingers of a government employee) to be solved by 2007 if I'm lucky.

It builds, this frustration. There is no reason these problems of data
coherency, data consistency, version control, etc... these problems that
people who have been programming computers for over half a century
solved years before I was born should be plaguing me now.

> Then have less money taken off each pay cheque. Then you'll get less
> back next year.

Yea, I tick off the box "DO NOT DEDUCT ANY TAXES, I WILL MAKE LESS THAN
THE MINIMUM" every year. Every year, taxes are deducted. According to
the HR people at the companies I work, they are not allowed to not tax
me unless I can get a personally signed letter from the CCRA.

>> Why can't there be a nice, official government website?
>> No, you have to go through some kind of Efile front end, hope it isn't
>> recording personal information, etc.
> Wait, you're submitting your personal information, and you're hoping
> its not recording it?

How do I know fileyourtaxeselectorincally.ca is not some front-end for a
phishing company? I only file taxes once a year, and I barely remember
things from previous years because a whole year occurs in between. As
is, I have to play 20 questions with those damned CCRA people when I try
to get them on the phone, since there's no public-key trust
infrastructure setup (and, while thorough, these are 20 things you could
easily find out about me if you were really interested in it -- just
setup a good looking efile tax website online).

My frustration is that there are solutions to these problems which are
cheap, simple, provably consistent, and more effective than what we have
now. Yet I have to keep solving old style problems. It's like stepping
back in time 20 years, interacting with certain organizations.
Received on Wed May 10 20:19:28 2006