February 19, 2010 by Dan White.

As a follow up to my earlier blog this morning. Read the following and then ask yourself; Does CRA go too far?”

Dan White

To learn more about CRA abuse and what you can do, go to www.taxauditsolutions.ca

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Taxpayer ombudsman can’t fix everything at CRA

Paul Dube and his staff win some, lose some while taking on thousands of cases

By Don Cayo, Vancouver SunFebruary 19, 2010 2:06 AM

It has been five years since I wrote my first column in what has become an long-running, intermittent series on taxpayer complaints about the Canada Revenue Agency.

It’s two years this Sunday since lawyer Paul Dube was appointed by the federal government as Canada’s first taxpayers’ ombudsman with a mandate to do much the same thing, to expose and rectify those complaints.

I had some success with my first case: CRA backed down from a ruling that would have re-interpreted old rules and imposed a six-figure reassessment on three Vancouver fruit sellers. I’ve been as lucky with several cases since.

Nonetheless, I’m pleased to report that Dube and his staff are batting quite a lot better than me. They’ve taken on a few thousand cases, compared with my few dozen. They’ve righted a gratifying number of wrongs, although he doesn’t have a precise count.

Still, I’m left with the uncomfortable feeling the tools Dube has been given are no surer or sharper than mine. In the end, he and I can both only scold, me in print and he more privately, mandarin-to-mandarin, so to speak. Beyond that, all either of us can do is hope CRA will do the right thing.

Ultimately, despite what Dube describes as a “formidable” power to assume guilt and impose crippling penalties, there’s no affordable, effective check on when CRA acts capriciously or decides to dig in. He and I are in the same boat in that we can say CRA really should fix some mess or other, but we can’t say they must.

And Dube has no power to order a financial break for people who’ve been ill-treated.

This last point is important.

Dube told me when he was in the city this month that communication is the most common cause of problems he encounters. I sort of agree, only I call it a failure to communicate, when taxpayers can’t reach the people who are making life-altering decisions about their files, when CRA won’t answer valid questions for months or years, or when answers change every time a new guy is assigned to the file.

The recurring theme in the stories I hear is how fast CRA’s demands for money ratchet up while the bureaucracy’s collective thumbs are twiddling.

If Dube were to look into many of the cases that come across my desk and find that policies were ignored or misapplied, what good would it do? Because Dube doesn’t have the authority to adjust the amount said to be owing.

Nor does he have the power to do anything about policies that are wrong-headed, although he’s sometimes successful in pleading for a break when an across-the-board policy yields a patently unfair result as a result of unique circumstances.

The upshot, as was noted last fall by the headline on my 39th column on the CRA, is that the main option open to aggrieved taxpayers is to “pay up and shut up or pay up and beg.”

And, as if this level of uncertainty isn’t bad enough, it gets worse. A survey commissioned by Dube found that 42 per cent of Canadians fear repercussions if they complain about CRA.

So I’m pleased that he got the job and that he’s able to look into several hundred cases a month, and resolve many of them.

And I wish him well in his quest to become better-known to Canadians and increase this volume to whatever it needs to be.

Dube’s phone number is 1-866-586-3839. His office accepts only complaints about CRA service, although, he says, that is interpreted quite broadly.

dcayo@vancouversun.com

See Don Cayo’s blog on tax issues and one on globalization s at vancouversun.com/blogs

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February 19, 2010 by Dan White.

TaxMan drives TaxPayer Crazy. TaxPayer flies plane into TaxMan’s Offices.

We have seen a lot of client’s feeling suicidal over the TaxMan and we have seen TaxPayers be very angry. But yesterday Joseph Stack took the final sacrifice for his country. He gave his life to tell his story.

It is extremely unfortunate that this has happened. I am sure that the IRS has a code of conduct similar to the CRA code and the TaxPayers Bill of Rights. Perhaps the TaxMan was thinking they had unrestricted powers. We have had CRA collections officers telling us that they did. When they say such things we know it is either ignorance of the law, CRA policy, The TaxPayer’s Bill of Rights, or the Canadian Charter of Rights. The TaxMan does NOT have unrestricted power.

There is no excuse for murder. Especially when it was not even likely the IRS personnel who drove Mr. Stack over the edge of sanity were even part of the disaster. My heart goes out to Joseph Stack and his friends and family. Joseph was obviously driven out of his sane mind. When you go out of your mind, revenge is bitter sweet. This is a sad day for North America.

I would hope that this event would cause the mutual friends “IRS and CRA” to reconsider their behavior.

I can tell you from a lot of personal experience. Some CRA staff are beyond mean. Some staff are obnoxious, bullying and bald faced liars.

CRA staff need to take this as a warning. Joseph Stack is not the only person in North America at their wits end and ready to end a life, usually it is their own.

We spend a lot of time with our clients getting them emotionally stabilized… we usually strongly urge them to not talk to the TaxMan. Instead we look after it all. We cannot be intimidated, but the individual uninformed of their rights TaxPayers certainly can be intimidated.

Let this stand as a warning to the TaxMan; The next time you abuse a TaxPayer, ask “Am I going to far?” Then govern yourself accordingly.

Dan White
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http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,586581,00.html

Fox News, announces Pilot Crashes Into Texas Building in Apparent Anti-IRS Suicide

Thursday, February 18, 2010

AP/Courtesy of Pam Parker

Joseph Stack

Joseph Stack

A pilot furious with the Internal Revenue Service crashed his small plane into an Austin, Texas, office building where nearly 200 federal tax employees work on Thursday, igniting a raging fire that sent massive plumes of thick, black smoke rising from the seven-story structure.

Austin Police Chief Art Acevedo said the incident was a single act by a sole individual, who appeared to be targeting the federal building. He refused to classify it as terrorism.

“I call it a cowardly, criminal act and there was no excuse for it,” Acevedo said at a news conference.

The FBI identified the pliot as Joseph Stack, a 53-year-old software engineer. Stack was confirmed dead, but his body has not yet been recovered.

At least one person who worked in the building was unaccounted for and two people were hospitalized, thirteen others were treated and released said Austin Fire Department Division Chief Dawn Clopton.

Emergency crews found two bodies in the building late Thursday evening, but wouldn’t identify them.

Texas Republican Congressman Michael McCaul told reported the incident was, “not tied to overseas terror organizations.”

A U.S. law official said investigators were looking at a lengthy, anti-government “manifesto” Stack is believed to have written on his Web site. The message outlines problems with the IRS and says violence “is the only answer.”

Click here to read the “manifesto” that was published on Stack’s Web site.

About 190 IRS employees work at 9420 Research Boulevard, the building that Stack crashed into. IRS spokesman Richard C. Sanford said the agency is trying to account for all of its workers.

IRS Agent William Winnie said he was on the third floor of the building when he saw a light-colored, single engine plane coming toward the building, TheStatesman.com reported.

“It looked like it was coming right in my window,” Winnie said, according to the Web site.
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* RAW DATA: Joseph Stack Suicide Manifesto

SLIDESHOW: Small Plane Crashes Into Austin Office Building

He said the plane veered down and smashed into the lower floors. “I didn’t lose my footing, but it was enough to knock people who were sitting to the floor,” he said.

In what appears to have been his suicide note, Stack is believed to have written:

“If you’re reading this, you’re no doubt asking yourself, “Why did this have to happen?’ The simple truth is that it is complicated and has been coming for a long time…

“Violence not only is the answer, it is the only answer…

“I saw it written once that the definition of insanity is repeating the same process over and over and expecting the outcome to suddenly be different. I am finally ready to stop this insanity. Well, Mr. Big Brother IRS man, let’s try something different; take my pound of flesh and sleep well,” the note, dated Thursday, reads.

IRS Commissioner Doug Shulman said he was shocked by the “tragic events,” but did not directly address Stack’s rant against the government agency.

“This incident is of deep concern to me,” the statement read. “We are working with law-enforcement agencies to fully investigate the events that led up to this plane crash.”

Stack took off in a Piper Cherokee from Georgetown Municipal Airport in Texas at 9:40 a.m. Federal Aviation Administration spokesman Lynn Lunsford said he didn’t file a flight plan. The plane crashed into the building in Austin about 20 minutes later.

Click here for chilling eye-witness accounts of Texas plane crash.

The Department of Homeland Security said it did not believe the crash was an act of terrorism. President Obama was briefed on the incident. As a precaution, the Colorado-based North American Aerospace Defense Command launched two F-16 aircraft from Houston’s Ellington Field, and was conducting an air patrol over the crash area.

Patrick Beach, who once played in a band with Stack, described him as a mild-mannered guy who was a stereotypical software guy.

“I talked to alot of people who knew him better than I did, and no one saw anything like this coming,” Beach told Fox News.

The toughest part about this, Beach said, was how this guy, who loved his wife and step-child, could be the same person who wanted to “commit mass murder.”

Billy Eli, a band member of Stack’s, has known the man for about five years and said he never suspected Stack had any political feelings.

“The Joe I knew was mostly apolitical,” he told Fox News. “I never heard him talk politics, or take a stand left or right. As far as I know he didn’t have a party affiliation.”

Stuart Newberg, who was in the area right before the crash, said the plane was flying low and fast when it plowed into the building, according to The Statesman.com.

“It was flying low and fast and I did a double take,” Newberg said, according to the Web site.

“I thought it was a play remote control plane. Then I saw the smoke.”

He told the paper he thought the plane seemed “very controlled.”

In a neighborhood about six miles from the crash site, a home listed as belonging to Stack was on fire earlier Thursday. Two law enforcement officials said Stack apparently set fire to his home before embarking on his suicide mission.

MyFoxAustin.com said firefighters reported that the entire house was on fire, including the fence, when they arrived on the scene.

Neighbors said they heard a loud explosion in the house Thursday morning right before it became engulfed in flames.

MyFoxAustin.com reported that a 12-year-old girl and a woman were rescued by a neighbor from the $236,000 home. The station reported that the girl is believed to be Stack’s stepdaughter. Other media reports indicated that these individuals may have alerted authorities to Stack’s actions.

A neighbor told MyFoxAustin.com that Stack was an experienced pilot who owned his own plane.

The Austin American-Statesman newspaper reported several “walking wounded” at the scene of the crash. Paramedics set up a triage center at the scene.

Early reports that the building housed the FBI field office in Austin turned out not to be true. An FBI spokesman told Fox News that the FBI office in Austin is near where the plane crashed, but not in the same building. There are some federal offices in the building, though authorities couldn’t identify which ones.

The NTSB was sending staff out of Dallas and Washington to the scene.

Witnesses were asked to contact the Austin Police Department at 210-650-6196 with any information that might be useful in the investigation.

According to California Secretary of State records, Stack had a troubled business history, twice starting software companies in California that ultimately were suspended by the state’s Franchise Tax Board.

In 1985, he incorporated Prowess Engineering Inc. in Corona. It was suspended two years later. He started Software Systems Service Corp. in Lincoln in 1995 and that entity was suspended in 2001. Stack listed himself as chief executive officer of both companies.

Click here for more from MyFoxAustin.com.

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