We know our government is in trouble when their actions indicate they are desperate to collect but reticent to pay out. We are handling cases where CRA owes money to taxpayers, but fights to keep it.

The National Post article below supports that impression.

For more info on CRA practices, [1] click here.

Dan White

Deadbeat government late in passing out seized wages
Liberal MP Ruby Dhalla raised the issue of missed government deadlines for passing on seized payments to creditors.

Aaron Lynett/National Post

Liberal MP Ruby Dhalla raised the issue of missed government deadlines for passing on seized payments to creditors.

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Mike De Souza, Postmedia News · Thursday, Oct. 14, 2010

OTTAWA — The federal government has seized more than $51-million in wages from its public servants over the past 4 1/2 years in response to court orders to collect unpaid debts, and child and spousal support payments from tardy employees.

But it has also been late passing along the seized payments to creditors, such as single parents, in thousands of cases, its own records show.

In fact, more than a dozen federal departments and agencies were late passing on seized payments to the courts in almost 6,400 cases. That resulted in delays of about $2.4-million in support payments or reimbursements for unpaid debts by the government.

The information surfaced after Liberal MP Ruby Dhalla raised the issue of missed deadlines by the government itself. She said she had heard several complaints from single mothers and senior citizens, in her suburban riding of Brampton-Springdale near Toronto, who were struggling to get support payments from former partners who worked in the public sector.

“You have vulnerable individuals who are essentially being taken advantage of and these are alarming statistics,” Ms. Dhalla told Postmedia News. “People are unable to pay their rent, their mortgage, their credit card bills and just basic school supplies for children.”

The documents cover the period from January 2006 to May 2010, with a breakdown from each department and agency.

Approximately 2,100 public servants have portions of their wages seized wages every year by the government, according to the documents.

Several departments or agencies — such as National Defence, the Correctional Service of Canada and the Canada Revenue Agency — each have more than 200 staff members subject to court orders that require a portion of their salaries to be seized.

Under existing legislation, the federal government is required to “garnishee” a portion of wages of an employee if it receives a court order to do so for missed child support payments, alimony or other unpaid debts from a creditor. The money must then be transferred within 15 days to a court that issues a cheque to the recipient. A department or agency could be held in contempt of court if it fails to meet this deadline.

Dhalla said she recalls one single mother who came into her office devastated after missing a monthly rent payment because she was waiting for the federal government to transfer the garnisheed wages of a former spouse who worked for the Canada Border Services Agency.

“She was in tears and she didn’t know what to do,” Ms. Dhalla said. “And because her ex-husband and the father of her children, in this particular case, was employed by the federal government, she just felt vulnerable in the sense that she didn’t have the money or the resources to be able to go up against them to get what she was owed.”

Cases of delays in federal payments or cases of employees with wages seized since 2006 could involve some of the same public servants more than once.

The Department of National Defence and Veterans Affairs topped the list in terms of delays by federal bodies in transferring seized wages to the courts for child support and alimony recipients. From 2006 to the current year, DND missed the 15-day deadline in 3,592 cases, or 17% of the time, for at total of $812,949.36 in late payments, while Veterans Affairs missed the deadline in 1,334 cases, or 38% of the time, adding up to $331,003.60.

The documents did not specify whether the DND employees involved consisted of military personnel, civilians or both.

A spokesman for the Treasury Board Secretariat of the government said it had analyzed the statistics and was not able to provide an explanation for the government’s own delays in forwarding the money once it had been seized from employees.

Health Canada was also plagued by delays in transferring seized wages, with 475 payments, or 39% of cases, in which it missed the deadlines, adding up to a total of $502,338.54 in late payments.

Some departments and agencies, in their own supplied assessments, were not able to specify the number of cases of in which they themselves suffered delays in passing along support payments from seized wages. But they did note a significant number of cases in which they seized wages since 2006.

For example, the Correctional Service of Canada documented 1,397 cases of employees with about $7.3-million in seized wages.

The Canada Border Services Agency seized $2.5-million in wages in 497 cases.

The Canada Revenue Agency seized $6.5-million in 1,364 cases involving its employees.

A spokesman for the tax-collecting agency noted that it is a large organization with more than 40,000 employees across the country, who are held to high standards of conduct and conflict of interest guidelines.

“The Canada Revenue Agency … is recognized and respected for its professional and effective administration of tax and benefit programs,” wrote the agency’s assistant director of media relations, Noel Carisse, in an email. “The CRA’s success (in its overall operations and activities) is, in large part, due to the exemplary conduct of its employees and Canadians should feel confident in the protection of their information and the fairness of the tax regime.”

Other departments — including DND, which has more than 100,000 employees including civilians and military personnel — also said that the numbers should be taken into context based on the size of the workforce. But none of the departments contacted by Postmedia News were immediately able to explain the department’s delays in transferring the garnisheed wages.

Simon Forsyth, a spokesman for Veterans Affairs Canada, said in an email that there were a limited number of employees at the department allowed to process financial information on garnishments “in order to protect employees’ privacy rights” but that its objective was to respect the payment periods defined by law.

Ms. Dhalla said the federal government should immediately address the delays and ensure people are no longer kept waiting for support payments.

“It really has a domino effect on the lives of families and on the lives of women and children,” she said. “This needs to be cleaned up.”

FACTBOXES

Justice delayed? Federal departments and agencies reporting the most delays in transferring garnisheed wages to the courts:

Department in National Defence: 3,592 cases of late payments totalling $812,949.36 (17% of reported cases).

Health Canada: 475 cases totalling $502,338.54 (39% of reported cases).

Veterans Affairs: 1,334 cases of late payments totalling $331,003.60 (38% of reported cases).

Environment Canada: 284 cases totalling $259,436.62 (15% of reported cases).

Citizenship and Immigration: 161 cases totalling $51,601.00 (11% of reported cases).

Total reported delays by government: 6,393 cases totalling $2,354,835.23 (five% of reported cases).

Some other numbers:

Total amount of wages garnisheed by federal government 2006 to 2010: $51,120,003.98 from 10,533 different cases.

Total number of reported federal employees with garnisheed wages in 2006: 2,172.

Total amount of wages garnished by the federal government in 2006: $11,218,491.80.

Total number of reported federal employees with garnisheed wages in 2007: 2,252.

Total amount of wages garnished by the federal government in 2007: $11,973,491.70.

Total number of reported federal employees with garnisheed wages in 2008: 2,026.

Total amount of wages garnished by the federal government in 2008: $11,368,293.10.

Total number of reported federal employees with garnished wages in 2009: 2,261.

Total amount of wages garnished by the federal government in 2009: $12,211,519.70.

Total number of reported federal employees with garnished wages to date in 2010: 1,842.

Total amount of wages garnished by the federal government in 2010 to date: $4,348,207.68.

Top departments for employees with seized wages between 2006 and 2010:

The Correctional Service of Canada:$7.3-million in seized wages in 1,397 cases.

Canada Revenue Agency: $6.5-million in 1,364 cases.

Department of National Defence: $4.7-million in wages in 986 cases.

Canada Border Services Agency seized $2.5-million in wages in 497 cases.