Tuesday, December 11, 2012

Biblitz Tax Review

Biblitz Tax Review

Please sign my petition for a full parliamentary review of the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) gone rogue.



Join Biblitz and the growing number of Canadians who have signed the petition calling for a full review by Parliament of the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA), its policies and procedures and the source of its authority. Canada and our trading partners demand immediate assurance that Canada's tax authority operates openly and in full compliance with Canadian law, including assorted constitutional protections.

It's no longer clear whether or who, if any, elected official currently instructs our tax authority. Increasingly, it looks as if CRA has gone rogue.

In the absence of adequate Parliamentary oversight, CRA assessments, audits and investigations may flout legal protections. Increasingly I fear they do. This month alone (December, 2012), CRA cites convictions in which small business operators were actually jailed over a disputed sum more properly the subject of a provincial court small claim. Equally disturbing is the fact that Canadian judges are going along with it. Why? Nothing in the sentencing guidelines under the Criminal Code supports such a Dickensian approach.

Arbitrary inquiries over tax amounts CRA never properly explains place a chill on business and not just in Canada. What about all the new trade agreements and takeovers the federal government has concluded lately? What about Canada's many similar agreements still being negotiated? Who wants to do business in a country with a secret service that has the power to deploy an arsenal of extreme super-remedies against even the smallest debtor before the debt is ever proved or even explained? No economy regardless of management is strong enough to sustain losses resulting from the excesses of an arbitrary, unrestrained tax authority.

Imagine what CRA will become if Canada bows to U.S. pressure to overturn the common-law revenue rule, one of the cornerstones of common law, and Finance Minister Jim Flaherty agrees to enforce not only our own but U.S. tax laws over which Canada has no control? Where will it end?

Please sign my petition calling for a parliamentary frog march of CRA back to democratic principles and the rule of law. Even a humble tax authority in a democracy must operate clearly and openly in the public interest and not against it. Currently ours does not.

Follow our campaign here at Blogger, Facebook, Twitter and at change.org.

Update: VICTORY! Biblitz wins his appeal. Here is CRA's letter of Feb. 27/13 allowing the objection, ending a months-long blizzard of terrifying, terrorizing threatening notices and phone calls:


7 comments:

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  2. Why, for goodness sake, does CRA refuse to use email to communicate with taxpayers for purposes of investigation? No more mysteriously lost or misplaced records, which may be copied/re-sent more conveniently/securely by email.

    And why not list full contact information for CRA personnel? What is the fear? A policeman is required to provide ID; CRA should, too. Biblitz makes it a policy never to answer the phone unless I know the caller. Taxpayers currently have no way to verify the identity of a person claiming to be with CRA.

    Consider, too, the maxim: 'Get it in writing. It's crucial to have a record of ALL communications with anyone with CRA's power.

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    1. The CRA employees totally refuse to put their threats, claims in writing for a reason, they KNOW that what they are doing is WRONG! ILLEGAL, AGAINST ALL the LAWS in CANADA, including the ITA and it's regulations!

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    2. What’s most troubling in my case is how long it took the agency to disclose fully the substance of its inquiry so that I could provide the evidence to support my view, which I did within an arbitrary deadline of Feb. 28/13 set by CRA. It’s like an old joke: How many CRA subalterns does it take to disclose to a taxpayer the full nature of the charge to be answered? I have found myself to be the target of a months-long blizzard of vague yet threatening notices each from a different employee and region of the country.

      This tells me two things: First, CRA is a wasteful enterprise that supports an excess of employees, most of whom are unable communicate information as basic as the formula behind a notional assessment to a taxpayer and second, that those same employees are abusing agency powers to exploit taxpayers in an effort to justify their highly-paid public service jobs while pursuing an undisclosed personal interest in the outcome. This is the only way to explain the zeal applied to CRA communications pursuant to my dispute and their threatening tenor.

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  3. Each CRA inquiry/assessment should be in writing and include the formula CRA used to calculate any amount owing, a brief description of the rule or statutory provision from which said formula is derived and at least one reference to all relevant tax records taxpayer submitted. In short: taxpayer must be notified of the basis of any inquiry. Indeed there must actually BE some basis of inquiry.

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  5. m/photo.php?fbid=438099329601070&set=a.398826486861688.89174.395992207145116&type=1&theater

    Here is my letter of Feb. 27/13 from CRA Appeals Officer, S. Mensah at the Burnaby-Fraser Tax Office, who has allowed my objection to a notional imaginary assessment ending a months-long blizzard of terrifying terrorizing threatening notices and phone calls from CRA employees in offices throughout the country. My fight is over, thank heaven, but the war rages on. If you or someone you know is similarly under CRA siege, refer them to the Biblitz Tax Review at Facebook (see https://www.facebook.com/pages/Biblitz-Tax-Review/395992207145116). If I can't help, I'll find someone who might. If we stand together, we will get the open, fully accountable tax agency we need in this country - one that respects Canadian laws, including fundamental rights and freedoms enshrined in the Charter.

    Strength and honor,
    Leo Biblitz

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