CRA News Release today / on the surface it looks really great.

But the reality, it's quite one thing to claim you are all about helping families and when in receipt of adjustment requests for multi-person, all related persons returns to claim for the past ten years if you didn't make a claim you were entitled to make, to rip apart the bundle requesting simultaneous transaction processing, making it impossible due to the circular nature of those requests for anything to be processed correctly.

http://www.cra-arc.gc.ca/nwsrm/rlss/2013/m02/nr130218-eng.html

Today, it just so happens I got organized to send a letter to the Minister of Revenue, and copied my MP, as well as the local taxation office.

February 7th, I attended a CRA / CGA liaison meeting hosted by the Surrey Taxation Office. At that meeting, my very serious question about why CRA doesn't respect professionals who prepare tax returns for families was shaken off like it was just me that had a problem with their policy of only accepting for processing, tax return adjustments from individuals. Nothing could be further from the truth. It's very common for professional preparers to warn their clients that it may take multiple attempts to actually achieve the desired result. They should expect that their adjustment requests will only be partially accepted because CRA refuses to simultaneous adjust multiple related persons tax returns in one sitting. This in spite of a request from their tax professional in writing, hand delivered with a bundle of documentation, pleading for this.

This in spite of 21 personal tax credits which require order of operations to be applied to them, and ten of those credits being apportionable, shareable or splittable between family members.

When submitting adjustments, the processing of those adjustments is taken very seriously, and I appreciate that you wouldn't just accept at face value that there is going to be apportionment of amounts. But if you don't process those requests together, in spite of the fact that you've submitted a cover letter requesting such fair and equitable treatment. On the surface it seems very reasonable to assume this would be acceptable to ask for this.

But no, CRA's mailroom has instructions to completely ignore all requests for simultaneous processing of taxpayer adjustments by family groups. They are instructed to rip apart such bundles and send the adjustments off in 50 different directions. One can just sense the glee eminating from the mailroom at such requests. The chance to remove giant paper clips, string binding, giant staples, red ribbons... it must feel like Christmas unwrapping those packages.

So much for Harper's grandiose claims that families are getting a fair break on their taxes. Just don't attempt to adjust those taxes if you missed a claim, expecting you'd actually get those requests processed in a timely manner. By the time you've re-submitted your claims every few months, each time amending the claim for what they managed to process this time, one would think there was something wrong with you or your professional.

Oh I see, if we make the tax professionals look like idiots, and get all their clients mad at them for all these incorrect re-assessments, and more time and energy required to re-submit claims, maybe they'll stop sending in those adjustments and leave us alone.