Blacklock’s- Can Spend 4 Hours On Hold
Taxpayers can wait up to four hours to speak to a Canada Revenue agent, says in-house federal research. The Revenue Agency earlier acknowledged taxpayers who prefer email will wait an average 57 days for a reply.
Even taxpayers able to speak to an agent found it unsatisfactory, said the report. “Some participants reported receiving what they perceived to be inaccurate or incomplete information,” it said.
They’ll put you on hold for 4 hours and then “lose” the connection… that way you can start all over again.
The whole system needs revision and simplification.
No, the “system” needs to make all those “civil servants” do their job.
You are both correct. But with reams of lawbledegook throughout the Income Tax Act, it is no wonder that not even CRA employees know what is up and what is down.
https://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/PDF/I-3.3.pdf
A mere 3000+ pages!!
I cant be the only one who has received a bizarre note from CRA, only to spend a day figuring out the nuances of that particular subsection of the law, only to realize CRA employees often make mistakes.
While Steve is correct with regard to “hardworking” public servants, the real solution starts with simplification and getting rid of useless laws.
I’m currently dealing with one of those, and it’s frustrating, since I provided what they wanted, and they still disallowed it for some unknown reason, which they haven’t told me about yet, but they are demanding I pay immediately.
59,155 employees in 2024.
(The year Juthtin the Phag became Dear Leader it was nearly 20,000 assholes less.)
They are all tied up in the department that sends 3 letters a week by snail mail explaining how much tax we owe.
Each letter explains in different detail how are last interim payment changed the balance, and how much interest is charged.
And then there is the letter saying 9 out of 10 Canadians pay up quickly.
Every Monday, Wednesday and Friday
ooooooooohhhhhhhhh gawd l would love to know how many voted lieberal
The biggest surprise to me was when our youngest brother (who was a certified management accountant) told the family that CRA agents had no financial degrees and probably could not even balance their own chequebooks. They received the bare minimum of training and knew nothing about complex tax matters, but they certainly are a diverse bunch judging by their names. I have had to deal with a lot of “new Canadians” who could barely speak English (do not know about French).
Again I emphasize, you cannot hate the federal government anymore than you already do.
Even if you do get through to CRA, you can never rely on their “advice”. It is an absolute gong show. The whole damned thing needs to be razed to the ground. The Income Tax Act needs to be cut by 80%….about the same percentage of cuts needed to the federal government.
Cut by 80%???!?! That would make the Income Tax Act a mere 687 pages long. How could any bureaucrat work with such minimal instruction?
I jest of course.
oh l sure can hate them more. lm currently directing the bulk of my hate towards motuhy mouth cops who are not averse to say, laughing in my face 1st time l tried to report a theft. that hate has grown to doing thing like calling up Tranna twice about the time northrup decided to act like a speed bump. boo hoo hoo and ha ha ha
As I have commented here before, the CRA shit show began in 2005 when the Client Service (Service, ha-ha) model was changed from your local office being who answered your call, to large call centres staffed by temp employees. Hire for tax rush, layoff soon after filing season ends, keep a skeleton staff the rest of the year. Answers come not from learned knowledge, but from the ability to follow a call and answer flow chart…
Who instigated the change in 2005?
The Liberals!
Government phone banks are the perfect entry point for DEI hires. So, don’t be surprised when “Shan’equa” struggles in reading the CRA website FAQ back to you. You know, the FAQ that you already read ten times over?
Be patient for your erroneous answer. Because it won’t matter when you’re audited.
Last time I called I got a woman who claimed there was nothing she could do for me. She told me to call back another day. (In broken English.) I asked to speak to her supervisor and lo and behind she suddenly was able to fix the problem quick marche.
The tried and true technique for sure. Too bad the Karen’s of the world hijacked it.
Had to wait 90+ minutes on hold, and I considered myself lucky. Quite a few times, I didn’t even make into the queue. RoboCallGirl said that lines were full and to try again later. This AFTER I had to jump through 14 different prompts responding to specific categories regarding my particular inquiry. Many times, when I did get through, I was told that I followed the wrong track. The agent was nice enough to transfer me to the correct department where, you guessed it. I had to go through the entire process all over again, then I had to wait after being put on hold… (again!)
Bought a property last year. Lawyer said I needed to pay GST on it so I submitted it. Got at letter months later from CRA that said the property was GST exempt for a bunch of reasons. They said I needed to apply for a refund. Sent application documents on April 30. Heard nothing back. Check for messages on line. Nothing. Reapplied on August 1. Got a letter today acknowledging receipt and will take 4 to 6 weeks to process. However, they said if future information is required it could take up to 6 months.
They are the ones that said the property was exempt but I have to prove to them that their assessment was correct. We’re are so screwed.
That is both hilarious and terrifying at the same time.
How does a massive decline in customer service square with a 40% increase to the federal public service over the past decade?
Easy. The increase was to parts of the PS that ‘govern’ other parts of the PS. In other words, the increase was designed to consume capacity, not expand it. Creating whole new directorates dedicated to ‘deliverology’, GBA+, and installing tampon dispensers in the men’s room doesn’t cut down on CRA phone waiting times.
3000+ pages is a lot of Canadian Revenue Agency Publications. Imagine trying to read all of those Canadian Revenue Agency Publications documents. We could solve this Canadian Revenue Agency Publications problem with three lines: “Income from $0 to $x”, a percentage, “Income from $x to $y”, another slightly larger percentage, and “Income from $y to infinity”, yet another slightly larger percentage. Under British Common Law, the law must be simple enough for its citizens to understand, or it should re-written.
And if the government does not live within its means as provided by the simplified codes, the firing starts at the top with the Finance Minister, and proceeds down through the CRA (only the first department to be reduced of many) until the government can live within its means. If the government is still not able to live within its means, the government is removed by referendum and replaced.
Since covid dealing with any federal agency is a nightmare, those working from home are using out dated data basis and it’s a horror show to reach any agency? In our case nine hours over two days, finally get a human who could barely speak English only to be told she only deals with refunds not problems. In the end the information the public servant we finally reached had our tax information from 20 years ago-I kid you not. I suspect the data bases they are using are precovid, and if they do not go into the office regularly they have no access to updated data?
If everyone just stopped filing, period. Problem solved. It’s not like they are doing anything with our money to benefit the average hard working Canadian.
I’ve long since come to the conclusion that CRA employees are the dumbest of the dumb and laziest of the lazy. About five years ago I ran into trouble getting a refund and was referred to another CRA department. They wanted receipts from 9 years earlier not withstanding you’re supposedly obligated to keep records for only seven years as per CRA guidelines.
Only second, maybe even third generation citizens should be eligible for employment by the “Government”.
Canada is not a legitimate country. It’s government, BY ITS OWN ADMISSION, is illegitimate. By what authority is it collecting taxes?
This kind of response time is what you get when professional “Public Servants” only have to show up to work in the office if they want to; usually 2 days per week. They get paid for all 5 days……
And that is why you have the PSAC folks complaining about the workload…….how do you expect a union Public Servant to get 5 days of work done (that they are paid for) when they only show up for 2 days?
Guess we need more “Public sector” workers eh? Someone has to do the work of the other 3 days when the other public sector workers are using them to go shopping, take a road trip, or just watch Netflix.
I don’t know yet how long you have to wait to get a call to the firearms registry answered to enquire about the progress of the license renewal application they received (registered mail) three months before your license expired five months ago, but I do know it takes more time than I can afford to take off work. Maybe after harvest I take a couple weeks of vacation to waste on that.
The Government of Canada is fraud.