You Know What Really Grinds My Gears? Now with 3x more gears...

[Weitz]

You sure showed her.

[topfiverecords]

An engineer explaining income tax brackets to a girl while he struggles to keep his pants zipped. Sounds like an Adam Sandler SNL skit.

Had he unzipped she’d definitely be getting less in that bracket.

[timun]

Look Weitz:

Originally Posted by timun

And I'm sure it doesn't surprise many other posters here that it eventually devolved into me being a condescending ass.

And I don't care. Stupid people deserve to be condescended to.

[taxbuster]

Originally Posted by DoubleF

What people also don't understand is that there's hundreds of ways to file your taxes correctly/strategize for tax purposes. It sometimes depends on your situation. The answer is always "it depends". What many other people also don't seem to understand is that accountants often deals with rules and law. People think accountants primarily deal with numbers. Actually the classification is more important than the number. This is completely different than doing something that is completely wrong. Also, what some people can do for tax purposes, others cannot.

Some clients though... I've basically distilled it down to, "You can try and do whatever you want. It doesn't mean I will be helping you do it." The business relationship ceased when they actually tried to do those crazy things.

This!! Yes, you can do it...and I'm not paying a fine or going to jail for you...so do what you want. Without my help. Oh, and here's my invoice for work to date. Tell mw where you want your files sent.


Tax is somewhat like Excel...there are many ways to get to the same place...and a few ways to go entirely wrong. People are paying us as tax pros to know the difference.


The LAST thing I want to do is try to explain some Subpara of the ITA to a client who thinks that Uncle Bob is smart, and knows a way around some issue.


I spend WAY more time "taxing" than "accounting". And, given the way that CRA is these days that includes a LOT of "administering". The overhead is getting ridiculous.

[taxbuster]

Originally Posted by cSpooge

There is a difference here. Medical expenses weren't actually audited they were reviewed which is done by a low level employee.


Your rental loss would require and actual auditor to review and would be a formal audit.

Yah - medical expenses are pretty much an annual "Project" where CRA sets an amount limit and reviews all claims (or sometimes just new claims) over that amount. Same goes for Chartiables and a variety of other claims, especially if Efiled (which the vast majority are now).


I have a client whose CharDons are > $20K every year and every year I get a request to supply them. They are always allowed in full. Stupid, but it's CRA.

[taxbuster]

Originally Posted by timun

Lolololol, how often do you have to explain how the progressive income tax rates work? "i WaS sO mAd I gOt A rAiSe BeCaUsE iT bUmPeD mE uP iNtO tHe NeXt TaX bRaCkEt, It'S nOt EvEn WoRtH iT!!"


I remember having a conversation about ten years ago with a friend-of-a-friend who quite seriously believed this. I think my friends were trying to set me up, because she was just my 'type': cute, freckly red-head. (And her boobs were spectacular too, my god...) But my attraction quickly faded when she started complaining about this. And I'm sure it doesn't surprise many other posters here that it eventually devolved into me being a condescending ass.

I always just say "There's no such thing as 100% tax." Seems to work.

[jayswin]

Turns out getting all CP's accountants together for a conversation is even more mundane than getting our lawyers together. Slightly less pedantic, I suppose. But yeesh, nice to have condescending and boring put into 200-500 word posts, repeatedly.

[EldrickOnIce]

Accountants droning on about accountant type things grinds my gears

[timun]

Boo-friggity-hoo!

[PepsiFree]

Listening to accountants and financial advisors have a conversation reduces my current mental health level out of 10.

[timun]

Yeah, well reading stupid crap written by the forum's ignoramuses reduces my mental health level, but you don't see me bitch—

Oh, well, actually, I suppose I do complain about it a bit.

[btimbit]

Originally Posted by EldrickOnIce

Accountants droning on about accountant type things grinds my gears

Hey at least if you can't sleep tonight you can just come and read all that, problem solved!

[Sainters7]

Sorry to shoehorn this into the accounting talk, but why do people who like to set up shop in your blind spot also seem to have an affinity for purchasing vehicles in the ol' "pavement slate" colour. Death wish?

[Locke]

Originally Posted by PepsiFree

Listening to accountants and financial advisors have a conversation reduces my current mental health level out of 10.

I consider it a PSA and have already issued Bingo an invoice for my services.

But I'm in my Helicopter and, I, for one, am looking forward to him trying to fire my payment at me via Harvey the Hound's T-Shirt Cannon.

This is what 'Charlie Wilson's War' would have looked like had it gone my way.

[81MC]

What group of ####s decided children’s toys should be so damn loud. Yeah vtech I’d love for all your stupid ass toys my daughter gets to cause her hearing damage at 2 years old. Really, what would we do if we didn’t have this blaring obnoxious way to frequent electric yelling thing a foot away from ear canals?

[DoubleF]

Originally Posted by calf

The CRA are also morons when it comes to what to audit as well.

A few years ago, I claimed two massive deductions of approximately equal amounts...one was a medical expense (fully supported by receipts), one was a loss on a rental property which was previously my principal residence, and required a lot more judgment and analysis - easy pickings for the CRA. They only audited the medical expenses.

I get lots of people get medical expenses wrong so they audit those almost automatically, but it really seemed like a miss for the to not audit the other thing at the same time.

That’s because the CRA agent that instigated that request for information was none other than Mr. Computer who was looking for patterns. It’s heavily automated now.

Medical and donations receipts are almost always automatically flagged. Same as FTC.

audits wise, the CRA loves to blitz entire industries at a time. A request for information isn’t actually an audit. Mr computer has basically started doing like 3-5X more requests for information within the last 18-24 months. I had some people tell me it's impossible to audit crypto. Bruh, that's Mr Computer's job and the guy who set up one of the newer systems to do this type of project faster (amongst others) is a drinking buddy of mine. CRA is waiting for you dummies to do it a few times and then they'll hit you with 3-5 years of easy fines in one fell swoop.

Originally Posted by EldrickOnIce

Accountants droning on about accountant type things grinds my gears

Part of my ethos is client education. The point of our droning is so the government gets what is fair and not a penny more. Victories against the government within the rules of their own game is always worth celebrating.

But man, tough crowd sometimes. Like that scene in Shawshank. Try and help someone protect their money from the government and they still wanna throw you off a roof.

[taxbuster]

Originally Posted by DoubleF

Part of my ethos is client education. The point of our droning is so the government gets what is fair and not a penny more. Victories against the government within the rules of their own game is always worth celebrating.

But man, tough crowd sometimes. Like that scene in Shawshank. Try and help someone protect their money from the government and they still wanna throw you off a roof.

This, in spades! I've been doing this for 40+ years and what I've learned is that...until it specifically affects them...they'd rather whine, bitch and complain than do something about it. Because doing something about it sometimes costs money (accounting and law) and effort (actual personal work).

I'm super-happy to help people who actually want to do the work of understanding, and I'm totally unwilling to help those who want me to make the decisions. I can't do that, and won't.

[iggy_oi]

Originally Posted by DoubleF

Part of my ethos is client education. The point of our droning is so the government gets what is fair and not a penny more. Victories against the government within the rules of their own game is always worth celebrating.

But man, tough crowd sometimes. Like that scene in Shawshank. Try and help someone protect their money from the government and they still wanna throw you off a roof.

This was a pretty enjoyable read.

[topfiverecords]

Originally Posted by 81MC

What group of ####s decided children’s toys should be so damn loud. Yeah vtech I’d love for all your stupid ass toys my daughter gets to cause her hearing damage at 2 years old. Really, what would we do if we didn’t have this blaring obnoxious way to frequent electric yelling thing a foot away from ear canals?

Masking tape over the speakers.

[Locke]

Originally Posted by DoubleF

That’s because the CRA agent that instigated that request for information was none other than Mr. Computer who was looking for patterns. It’s heavily automated now.

Medical and donations receipts are almost always automatically flagged. Same as FTC.

audits wise, the CRA loves to blitz entire industries at a time. A request for information isn’t actually an audit. Mr computer has basically started doing like 3-5X more requests for information within the last 18-24 months. I had some people tell me it's impossible to audit crypto. Bruh, that's Mr Computer's job and the guy who set up one of the newer systems to do this type of project faster (amongst others) is a drinking buddy of mine. CRA is waiting for you dummies to do it a few times and then they'll hit you with 3-5 years of easy fines in one fell swoop.




Part of my ethos is client education. The point of our droning is so the government gets what is fair and not a penny more. Victories against the government within the rules of their own game is always worth celebrating.

But man, tough crowd sometimes. Like that scene in Shawshank. Try and help someone protect their money from the government and they still wanna throw you off a roof.

Agreed, which is why I tend to give out advice on the board rather frequently.

One of the major problems is that Mr. Computer can only do what he's told and the humans behind him keep getting dumber and dumber.

As for 'blitzing entire industries?'

Lets just say...this is way, way more common than people realize. I've gone through many phases of this kind of targeting.

CRA is not there to work for you. Its an actual conflict between the Government and the populace.

Speaking of which...remember when Trudeau gave CRA $1 Billion to start cracking down on off-shore sheltering schemes? Hows that been working out?