Random Thought Thread v2

[DoubleF]

Originally Posted by Locke

I assure you that the Sliver and Yoho threads, despite all rational thinking to the contrary, are not a chemically induced hallucination or fever dream.

Its just been that kind of week...

Yeah... and the amount of confused correspondences from multiple individuals about how they're confused their 2022 taxes aren't showing up as filed on the MyCRA website...

"Yo, those are going to be filed this year and due on April 30, 2023 (May 1, 2023 because weekend). While I am loathe to defend the government in most situations, I think you're confused and lobbing fault on all sorts of professionals and the government completely incorrectly."
"Nobody told me..."
"Nobody thought they'd have to ask you not to be a big, vicious idiot."

[Cecil Terwilliger]

What’s with the fireworks downtown?

[bizaro86]

Originally Posted by DoubleF

Yeah... and the amount of confused correspondences from multiple individuals about how they're confused their 2022 taxes aren't showing up as filed on the MyCRA website...

"Yo, those are going to be filed this year and due on April 30, 2023 (May 1, 2023 because weekend). While I am loathe to defend the government in most situations, I think you're confused and lobbing fault on all sorts of professionals and the government completely incorrectly."
"Nobody told me..."
"Nobody thought they'd have to ask you not to be a big, vicious idiot."

Someone told my wife today they never buy a new set of tax software (TurboTax etc), and just file with the one they bought 6 or 7 years ago every year, since "the CRA will catch any errors anyway".

[Locke]

Originally Posted by Cecil Terwilliger

What’s with the fireworks downtown?

The Flames clinched a playoff spot?

[81MC]

####ing hilarious we’ve had at least 10 visits by plows and graders and sanders in the last 3 days after they already plowed 14 times, meanwhile major roads were a ####ing zoo still.

[GGG]

Originally Posted by 81MC

####ing hilarious we’ve had at least 10 visits by plows and graders and sanders in the last 3 days after they already plowed 14 times, meanwhile major roads were a ####ing zoo still.

What major roads are a #### show right now? Outside of drivers sucking I’m not seeing a shortage of plows.

You are on a bus route so you get priority.

[81MC]

Priority is one thing. Plow after plow after plow after sander after salter after plow after sander is another.

Especially when 500m away, the merge lane onto Blackfoot is functionally a yield because the snow buildup in the lane, and the entirety of turning lanes on 17th Ave SE are a foot deep. That’s okay though, I’m sure the melt today will take care of that and the fresh layer of salt added to our residential street 3 hours ago will promptly run into the river.

[topfiverecords]

Originally Posted by 81MC

Priority is one thing. Plow after plow after plow after sander after salter after plow after sander is another.

Especially when 500m away, the merge lane onto Blackfoot is functionally a yield because the snow buildup in the lane, and the entirety of turning lanes on 17th Ave SE are a foot deep. That’s okay though, I’m sure the melt today will take care of that and the fresh layer of salt added to our residential street 3 hours ago will promptly run into the river.

This is like when I lived close to 14th Street NW. They would grade that sucker continuously. I’m surprised they didn’t wear the bridge down so far they dropped into the river. Would it hurt to have some segment of the crew dedicated to scouting and dealing with trouble spots instead of just all of them as lemmings repeatedly following the prescribed routes.

[DoubleF]

Originally Posted by bizaro86

Someone told my wife today they never buy a new set of tax software (TurboTax etc), and just file with the one they bought 6 or 7 years ago every year, since "the CRA will catch any errors anyway".

Yeah, that's not how it really works.... but I'm not surprised people think this way. Some of the ideas some people have about the CRA are inexplicably stupid. I'm glad I'm not dealing with most of that stuff anymore.

Someone doing something like that though is potentially filing inefficiently and paying more taxes than needed to the government. It's not filed wrong, it's just not filed in a way advantageous to the tax payer.

I saw a tax return someone did themselves using older programs and literally did not fill in the form for the climate action incentive (because it wasn't there), thus didn't get it.

I've even seen some people who use the paper books the CRA used to hand out and file that way. They fill it in wrong/it's outdated and then don't get a bunch of their personal tax credits.

There are free programs. Why anyone wants to use an outdated one or avoid a cheap one to make sure they get that back and more is mystifying.

[bizaro86]

Originally Posted by DoubleF

Yeah, that's not how it really works.... but I'm not surprised people think this way. Some of the ideas some people have about the CRA are inexplicably stupid. I'm glad I'm not dealing with most of that stuff anymore.

Someone doing something like that though is potentially filing inefficiently and paying more taxes than needed to the government. It's not filed wrong, it's just not filed in a way advantageous to the tax payer.

I saw a tax return someone did themselves using older programs and literally did not fill in the form for the climate action incentive (because it wasn't there), thus didn't get it.

I've even seen some people who use the paper books the CRA used to hand out and file that way. They fill it in wrong/it's outdated and then don't get a bunch of their personal tax credits.

There are free programs. Why anyone wants to use an outdated one or avoid a cheap one to make sure they get that back and more is mystifying.

Oh for sure, I was adding that on as another way people are "big, vicious idiots" with their taxes. My mouth literally dropped open when my wife told me that - it's probably good I wasn't there as iirc there are rules against smacking people upside the head.

[Fuzz]

You are much better to just use one of the online ones. I use ufile, it's about $20, downloads all my data from CRA and fills out the fields auto-magically, and is up to date. I double check everything, and have pretty simple taxes, so it works very well for me.

[DoubleF]

Originally Posted by Fuzz

You are much better to just use one of the online ones. I use ufile, it's about $20, downloads all my data from CRA and fills out the fields auto-magically, and is up to date. I double check everything, and have pretty simple taxes, so it works very well for me.

Heh, you spend money on your tax program. If you want a rabbit hole to go down, you should look into the tax software lobby conspiracy.

[Fuzz]

Originally Posted by DoubleF

Heh, you spend money on your tax program. If you want a rabbit hole to go down, you should look into the tax software lobby conspiracy.

It's such a small amount and saves me loads of time, so it's worth it. Are there free ones with the same functionality?

[btimbit]

Originally Posted by Fuzz

It's such a small amount and saves me loads of time, so it's worth it. Are there free ones with the same functionality?

Yeah most of the software I've tried all load from Netfile these days. I used Studiotax for years when it was free, then used Wealthsimple this year, and they pretty much all work the same

[Slava]

Originally Posted by DoubleF

Heh, you spend money on your tax program. If you want a rabbit hole to go down, you should look into the tax software lobby conspiracy.

I don't know what the conspiracy here is, but CRA already has all this information. It's entirely ludicrous for ~90% of people to have to fill out papers, and confirm what the CRA already has on file. I have no doubt that Intuit and H&R Block love it, because it's their business. I don't know if that's a conspiracy, but it's just plain bureaucracy that we could do without.

[btimbit]

Originally Posted by Slava

I don't know what the conspiracy here is, but CRA already has all this information. It's entirely ludicrous for ~90% of people to have to fill out papers, and confirm what the CRA already has on file. I have no doubt that Intuit and H&R Block love it, because it's their business. I don't know if that's a conspiracy, but it's just plain bureaucracy that we could do without.

Yeah on the face of it, for the average person this all feels like a waste of time. CRA gets all my tax forms before I do, half the time when I file I end up getting the info from the CRA anyway because I don't have it for myself yet. And the one time I did mistype something (years ago before auto-fill) the CRA automatically detected and fixed it with zero input from me whatsoever, they just let me know after the fact

It definitely raised the question; Why the hell am I even doing all this if what I input doesn't even matter?

[DoubleF]

Originally Posted by Fuzz

It's such a small amount and saves me loads of time, so it's worth it. Are there free ones with the same functionality?

No, I'm just joking you. I'm sure you're doing it just fine and the small fee is probably worth it when you compare it to the barebones free versions.

I'm just saying there's a tax lobby conspiracy where some people think that the government is supposed to file it for you for free. Any fee charged by anyone to "help" file is the company working with the government to complicate filing of taxes on purpose and screw the taxpayers so that the government gets more money.

[Fuzz]

Originally Posted by DoubleF

No, I'm just joking you. I'm sure you're doing it just fine and the small fee is probably worth it when you compare it to the barebones free versions.

I'm just saying there's a tax lobby conspiracy where some people think that the government is supposed to file it for you for free. Any fee charged by anyone to "help" file is the company working with the government to complicate filing of taxes on purpose and screw the taxpayers so that the government gets more money.

My dad's old employee in the 90's would go to the post office, grab a tax booklet, write his name on it, and stuff all his slips in with it and send it to the CRA. They'd do it for him, even in the paper days. It was years before he realized this isn't how most people do taxes, but it worked for him!

[DoubleF]

Originally Posted by Slava

I don't know what the conspiracy here is, but CRA already has all this information. It's entirely ludicrous for ~90% of people to have to fill out papers, and confirm what the CRA already has on file. I have no doubt that Intuit and H&R Block love it, because it's their business. I don't know if that's a conspiracy, but it's just plain bureaucracy that we could do without.

The "conspiracy" is that the average schmoe filing through H&R Block or a paid program is a corporate ploy with government to screw the people. Which is BS. Paying someone to autofill for you and then complaining about their fee is dumb. It's like asking a plumber to show up and fix something, then complaining about their service call fee and hourly rate because you can do it cheaper via DIY but didn't feel like it.

Canada is going to need tax reform IMO. But it would be a huge and painful overhaul to hit a certain level. Canada's tax system is based on self reporting and it is integrated with a lot of other stuff that gives deductions, credits, grind downs etc., which is a portion of the reason this is as complicated as it is. Many other countries do not have this on personal tax returns. They are a separate thing.

I looked at many different European tax jurisdictions and read their tax returns over the last few years for a previous work project. I was jealous as hell at how the simple tax returns were so easy. Basically, "Click to confirm, receive a refund due to higher withholdings". However, they often don't have things like donation/medical/accounting fee deductions. There's no extra tax credits for working, dependents, low income, home buyers plans, support payments, moving expenses etc.

Canada currently does not collect enough data to do this and has too many other things tacked on to make it work in a simplified manner at this point in time. The CRA apparently has a heck of a time convincing people to set up MyCRA and in some instances auto deposit. I don't like the government forcing things upon citizens, but I think something like this to access easy tax filings for easy returns is an absolute requirement if people want things like this.

The conflict is honestly on par with not wanting to be tracked online and wandering around with a damn cell phone.

[Locke]

Originally Posted by DoubleF

The "conspiracy" is that the average schmoe filing through H&R Block or a paid program is a corporate ploy with government to screw the people. Which is BS. Paying someone to autofill for you and then complaining about their fee is dumb. It's like asking a plumber to show up and fix something, then complaining about their service call fee and hourly rate because you can do it cheaper via DIY but didn't feel like it.

Canada is going to need tax reform IMO. But it would be a huge and painful overhaul to hit a certain level. Canada's tax system is based on self reporting and it is integrated with a lot of other stuff that gives deductions, credits, grind downs etc., which is a portion of the reason this is as complicated as it is. Many other countries do not have this on personal tax returns. They are a separate thing.

I looked at many different European tax jurisdictions and read their tax returns over the last few years for a previous work project. I was jealous as hell at how the simple tax returns were so easy. Basically, "Click to confirm, receive a refund due to higher withholdings". However, they often don't have things like donation/medical/accounting fee deductions. There's no extra tax credits for working, dependents, low income, home buyers plans, support payments, moving expenses etc.

Canada currently does not collect enough data to do this and has too many other things tacked on to make it work in a simplified manner at this point in time. The CRA apparently has a heck of a time convincing people to set up MyCRA and in some instances auto deposit. I don't like the government forcing things upon citizens, but I think something like this to access easy tax filings for easy returns is an absolute requirement if people want things like this.

The conflict is honestly on par with not wanting to be tracked online and wandering around with a damn cell phone.

I agree with you for the most part.

However, I find it hilarious that some people think "Why should we bother doing this if the Government knows everything anyways?"

Deal with CRA even for a little bit and see this great machine operate perfectly and consistently.

Hell even last year seniors were complaining that they didnt get their CPP and OAS slips.

You mean...the ones that are paid by, created by, filed with and mailed out exclusively using Government services from start to finish? And they were a month late and forgot the one-time $500 seniors' benefit T4A?