A few weeks ago, two of our clients faxed my office letters they got a few weeks earlier from CRA. They say they want more information to back up some tax amends that I filed online at the start of October right after I got back from Vegas, and that CRA has been unable to reach me by phone to discuss them.
From my end of things CRA attempting to contact me is didn't happen as I have not received any phone calls or messages. As the deadline for getting CRA this stuff has now long passed as this fax did not come across my desk until now, I tried to call CRA about this.
Firstly, often letters like this do not include a direct phone number where the author can be reached at so you can only call their main 1-800 line. It seems that unless you pick up the phone on the first ring when the government calls you about something, you can never,
NEVER, *EVER* talk directly again to whoever is actually looking at your file. I guess their attitude is: "If you're not waiting by your phone 24/7 for us to call for any reason, then you do not deserve a quick and speedy resolution to whatever problems we create for you."
Plus, I'm starting to think that the "names" that are signed on CRA letters are noms de plumes for whatever department sent it and provide a cloak of anonymity for the actual grub who wrote it.
After a long string of busy signals, I eventually got through to "somebody" at CRA. After going through the usual verification hoops I started explaining the situation, and she abruptly said: "Stop right there. I have to transfer you." (Somebody's sure got a traffic cop complex.)
I then got put through to somebody else at CRA and after going through the verification hoops again I started explaining the situation, and I got the information I needed to start resolving this. Also, he said that they have no phone number on file for my office under our clients' authorizations.
Even though our phone number is on every government tax form we sent out, CRA is telling our clients that they've been trying to call me is a creative way of saying they didn't because they couldn't! Don't they have phone books?
This is exactly why I voted the way I did. Yet another pointless hacking away at the multiple headed hydra that's CRA.
