Re: Government gripes (Was: Re: Census Fun)

On Wed, May 10, 2006 at 11:40:16PM -0600, Scott Walde wrote:
> Dylan Griffiths wrote:
>
> >
> >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.
> >
> No! F*ck the Excel spreadsheet. There is absolutely _no_ reason why
> they couldn't hire some php/mysql lackeys (okay, maybe that's pushing it
> a bit) to spend a month to build an online basic T1 filing website.
> Maybe, they could leave off some of the more obscure forms -- I could
> accept that -- but for the average "I have one T4, a few charitable
> donations, and maybe an RRSP contribution" person, there is no reason
> that they shouldn't be able to file for free on CRA's website. (Intuit
> may not be happy -- tough crap.)

I believe the general idea is to maximize the complexity and hence the
possibility of error. Taxpayers will either err and pay too much (good for
CRA) or will pay too little so that when the auditor comes around there
will be a reason to charge penalties and interest to cover the cost of the
audit.

I'd rather give postage to Crappy Post than Intuit so I do my taxes the old
fashioned way ... graphite on paper.
Received on Thu May 11 01:28:18 2006